Technology-enabled anticipatory guidance and peer support in empowering parents to prevent early childhood caries: a randomized controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION

Dental caries is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases of childhood. Early childhood caries (ECC), defined as onset of dental caries before 6 years of age, is preventable and reversible in the early stages with proper interventions. The purpose of the study is to assess the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of technology-enabled anticipatory guidance and peer support in empowering parents to establish good diets, feeding and oral hygiene practices to prevent ECC.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

Mother-child dyads will be recruited from pre-natal clinics and post-natal wards of a tertiary care hospital in Singapore. The control group will receive conventional oral health education materials while the intervention group will join four rounds of online parent empowerment sessions focusing on anticipatory guidance and peer-support. Mothers will complete a questionnaire and food frequency checklist when their child turns 12, 24 and 36 months; each child will undergo an oral examination at the age of 24 and 36 months. Chi-square tests and two-sample t-tests, or their non-parametric equivalents will be used to compare proportions of children with caries by decayed, missing and filled teeth (dmft) and decayed, missing and filled surfaces (dmfs) scores between groups. Effect sizes and their confidence intervals will be calculated along with number needed to treat. Multivariable analyses will be carried out to assess the effect of the intervention on primary outcomes (caries incidence at 24 and 36 months) and secondary outcomes (including parental efficacy, child's oral health behaviours and oral hygiene status, quality of life). Cost-effectiveness analyses will also be carried out.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The study was approved by Domain Specific Review Board (DSRB 2024/00244). Results will be published in international peer-reviewed journals.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

The trial was retrospectively registered on ClinicialTrials.gov (NCT06558955) around the time of the commencement of patient recruitment, but prior to the commencement of any intervention.