US Pediatric Dentists' Views on an Expanded Approach to Early Childhood Caries Counseling

Purpose: To determine US pediatric dentists' views on the feasibility and acceptability of an expanded counseling approach for early childhood caries (ECC) prevention and management that includes goal setting, action planning, and follow-up; assess their willingness to adopt these strategies in practice; and determine views on whether these strategies align with pediatric dentistry's scope of practice. Methods: For this cross-sectional observational study, all 5,925 American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry active members in 2021 were invited to a Zoom-delivered survey between November 2021 and July 2023 (28 percent response proportion, N equals 1,639). Results: Most respondents regarded identifying behavioral goals (95.6 percent), action planning (78.3 percent), and providing text follow-up (70.1 percent) as feasible and expressed willingness to incorporate these elements in practice (98.5 percent, 92.5 percent, and 71.1 percent, respectively). Most considered this expanded approach to counseling to be of interest (92.7 percent), exciting (83.2 percent), likely to happen within five to 10 years (73.8 percent), and within their practice scope (98.7 percent). More agreed that patients' families would accept this approach more than staff (84.8 percent [95 percent confidence interval equals 83.0 percent, 86.5 percent] versus 78.6 percent [76.5 percent, 80.5 percent]); 4.6 percent opposed this approach. Owners of private practices were generally less supportive than employed dentists. Conclusion: While expanded early childhood caries counseling is positively viewed by US pediatric dentists, the practice environment affects the level of support.