An effective psychoeducational intervention for early childhood caries prevention: part II

The purpose was to compare whether mothers exposed to an autonomy-supportive psychoeducational videotaped message, informed by self-determination theory (SDT), demonstrated greater changes in behavior concerning their children's oral health than mothers exposed to a neutral message delivered by brochure.

Data were collected at baseline, one- and six-month follow-ups from 415 12- to 49-month-old WIC-enrolled children and their mothers: 283 in the video intervention group and 132 in the brochure control group. Mothers completed questionnaires regarding their child's dietary/oral hygiene habits. Chi-square, Wilcoxon Signed Rank, Mann-Whitney, and McNemar tests were used to analyze data (P<0.05).

Significantly more positive changes were observed for dietary/oral hygiene behaviors among the intervention group mothers at one- and six-month follow-ups than for the controls. Significantly fewer mothers in the intervention group shared dining ware with their child at both one- (P=0.0046) and six-month follow-ups (P<0.0001); this practice was decreased only at six-months for the control group mothers (P=0.05). Restricting consideration only to mothers who were not checking for white spot lesions at baseline, a significantly greater proportion of mothers in the intervention group performed this behavior at six-months (P=0.0044).

Data provided evidence of the effectiveness of the SDT videotaped oral health message relative to a neutral brochure.