Motivational Interviewing to Improve Pediatric Dental Recall Attendance after General Anesthesia

Purpose: To determine the effect of motivational interviewing (MI) to improve recall attendance after dental treatment under general anesthesia (GA).
Methods: The sample consisted of parents of randomly selected pediatric patients who had oral rehabilitation under GA at a children's hospital. An 18-item questionnaire that included demographics, education, language, country of birth and age was administered prior to the GA appointment. A five-minute MI phone call three months after the procedure and a second MI phone call after the first recall was conducted by a standardized interviewer. The primary outcomes were attendance at the six- and 12-month recall visits. Data were compared to a historical control group of participants who did not receive the MI phone call during the same date range.
Results: Of 100 patients, 72 participated in the first phone call and 51 participated in the second phone call. All children had public insurance. The estimated odds of a six-month recall visit for parents receiving a single motivational interview was 2.52 times (95 percent confidence interval [95% CI]=1.43 to 4.44, P =0.001) higher compared to the control. The estimated odds of a 12-month recall visit for parents receiving two motivational interviews was 2.40 times greater (95% CI=1.27 to 4.54, P =0.006) compared to the historical control.
Conclusion: A brief intervention using MI led to an improvement in attendance at both the six- and 12-month recall visits.