Addressing childhood overweight and obesity in the dental office: rationale and practical guidelines.
(73/103)
The prevalence of childhood obesity has increased dramatically in the past 3 decades. The purposes of this paper were to: review health and dental implications; present guidelines for tracking body mass index (BMI) percentiles in children; and discuss reasonable "next steps" to take in communicating with parents and other health professionals. The health implications of childhood obesity warrant early monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment. Trends in visitation patterns of children offer dentists an unusual opportunity and an important role in addressing childhood obesity through regular monitoring of height, weight, and BMI percentiles. Dentists' collaborations with pediatricians, registered dietitians, and parents have the potential to address the detrimental physical and psychosocial effects of childhood obesity. We encourage dentists to determine height, weight, and BMI percentiles for their patients at least annually. They should refer patients with unhealthy weight trajectories to pediatricians or family physicians and consider ancillary referrals to registered dietitians. (+info)
Dental education and dentists' attitudes and behavior concerning patients with autism.
(74/103)
The number of patients diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the United States has increased significantly. The objectives of this study were to explore general and pediatric dentists' professional attitudes and behavior towards patients with ASD; these dentists' perceptions of their dental education about these issues; and the relationships among their educational experiences, attitudes, and behaviors concerning patients with ASD. Survey data were collected from 162 general dentists in Michigan and 212 pediatric dentists across the United States. The results showed that 89 percent of pediatric dentists and 32 percent of general dentists treat patients with ASD. The respondents disagreed with statements indicating that their predoctoral dental education had prepared them well to treat patients with ASD. However, the better they felt prepared, the more likely they were to provide care for these patients. The frequency with which pediatric dentists said they use appropriate behavior management strategies when treating patients with ASD correlated with the quality of their educational experiences. In conclusion, given the growing number of patients with ASD, it is important to revisit dental education efforts targeted towards preparing future dental care providers for the treatment of patients with ASD and special needs. (+info)
Expanding dental education partnerships beyond the four walls.
(75/103)
The increasing complexities of health care that dental graduates must be equipped to handle require schools to develop new models of education in order to address these intricacies. To meet these challenges, it is the school's responsibility to provide an environment that fosters discovery and scholarly activity, embraces evidence-based philosophies, encourages partnerships with other units on campus and the community, including the global community, and recognizes the richness of diversity in both our human resources and our thinking. Beyond new curriculum initiatives within our school, we recognized the need to build strong partnerships outside our four walls in order to respond to the challenges confronting us. Four such notable recent initiatives at the University of Washington School of Dentistry discussed in this article are Regional Initiatives in Dental Education, the Center for Pediatric Dentistry: Program in Early Childhood Oral Health, Northwest PRECEDENT (Practice-based REsearch Collaborative in Evidence-based DENTistry), and Alaska Native Dental Health Aide Therapist Program. These partnerships focus on new models to improve access to care and to enhance the impact of research on evidence-based practice. These are examples of the many opportunities for us to act collectively in creating new models that ensure our graduates have the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to be competent oral health care professionals. (+info)
Contribution of dentist anesthesiologists to dental anesthesiology research.
(76/103)
Predoctoral and postdoctoral students' perspectives about pediatric dental behavior guidance.
(77/103)
This study compared acceptability scores of pediatric dental behavior guidance between predoctoral senior dental students and postdoctoral pediatric dentistry graduates. The scores were obtained with an anonymous survey that included twenty-five items related to behavior guidance techniques or situations, with the degree of acceptability of each being marked on a visual analog scale. Demographic data collected included year of graduation from the postdoctoral program, type of employment, being board-certified or not, gender, marital and parental status, previously receiving dental or medical treatment, and degree of unpleasantness from these treatments. Thirty-nine predoctoral and fifty-one postdoctoral surveys were compared. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the predoctoral acceptability scores were statistically significantly higher than the postdoctoral scores for not allowing the child to speak during treatment, voice control, hand over mouth, active immobilization, and providing an exact explanation to the child. The predoctoral scores were lower than the postdoctoral scores for not using local anesthetic when the child does not want it, parent's presence in the operatory during treatment, or talking with the dentist during treatment. ANOVA of the predoctoral and postdoctoral scores combined indicated statistically significant differences between scores from male and females respondents for parent talking with the dentist during treatment; between married and not married respondents for hand over mouth, encouraging the child not to be a coward, the child being allowed to stop the treatment, and the parent being in the operatory during treatment; and between parents and not parents respondents for child not allowed to speak during the treatment, voice control, and hand over mouth. This study found that perspectives about pediatric dental behavior guidance are influenced by pre- and postdoctoral education and postgraduate experience. (+info)
Effectiveness of web-based teaching modules: test-enhanced learning in dental education.
(78/103)
The purpose of our study was to evaluate the effectiveness of self-tests as a component of web-based self-instruction in predoctoral orthodontics and pediatric dentistry. To this end, the usage patterns of online teaching modules and self-tests by students enrolled in three courses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Dentistry were monitored and correlated to final exam grade and course average. We recorded the frequency of access to thirty relevant teaching modules and twenty-nine relevant self-tests for 157 second- and third-year D.D.S. students during the course of our data collection. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between frequency of accessing self-tests and course performance in one course that was totally based on self-instruction with seminars and multiple-choice examination (Level IV): Spearman correlation between frequency of self-test access and final exam grade, rho=0.23, p=0.044; correlation between frequency of self-test access and course average: rho=0.39, p=0.0004. In the other two courses we monitored, which included content beyond self-instruction with self-tests, the correlations were positive but not statistically significant. The students' use of online learning resources varied significantly from one course (Level I) to the next (Level II): Wilcoxon matched pairs signed-rank tests, S=-515.5, p=.0057 and S=1086, p<0.0001. The data from this study suggest that increased use of web-based self-tests may be correlated with more effective learning in predoctoral dental education by virtue of the testing effect and that dental students' usage of resources for learning changes significantly over the course of their education. (+info)
A medical crisis management simulation activity for pediatric dental residents and assistants.
(79/103)
Dentists are expected to deliver safe and pain-free dental procedures after they graduate from dental school. This includes using local anesthetics and sedative drugs that may be associated with side effects and complications that can lead to crisis situations. This study postulated that teaching medical crisis management to dental residents and assistants using human patient simulation (HPS) would improve their confidence in managing crisis situations in the real world. Four medical crisis scenarios were designed and programmed into a pediatric simulator. The scenarios included anaphylaxis, laryngospasm during procedural sedation, sedative medication overdose, and multiple drug interaction with cardiac arrhythmia. The simulation room was outfitted with an authentic dental operatory and emergency equipment to enhance the realism. One first-or second-year pediatric dentistry resident and a staff dental assistant were assigned as a team to participate in each ten-minute scenario followed by a debriefing session. At the end of the sessions, the participants completed an anonymous survey regarding the simulation experience. There were a total of twenty-four participants, 91.7 percent of whom felt that HPS was a good tool for learning medical crisis and that they will be more confident in managing a similar situation in the dental office after this experience. A majority of the participants felt that using HPS as a tool to teach crisis management is an acceptable and valuable technique to help improve their confidence in managing crisis situations that may occur in dental offices. (+info)
Bispectral index monitoring of sedation depth in pediatric dental patients.
(80/103)