Vicki Lau
Mariam Khamis
Binglan Xue
Yilan Miao
| Vicki Lau | Mariam Khamis | Binglan Xue | Yilan Miao |
Vicki Lau, Mariam Khamis, Binglan Xue, Yilan Miao
Tatyana Straus, Joan Gluch
Division of Community Oral Health, Preventive & Restorative Sciences, University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
Description
First Five Program in Penn Dental Medicine Pediatric Clinic
Project Overview
Young children often have behavioral problems in the dental clinic due to unfamiliarity with the dental environment, materials, personnel and procedures. Children's fear, discomfort, and poor behavior at the dental office makes effective dentistry difficult and time consuming. Parents and pediatric dentists need an effective tool to help children, especially to adjust to dental visits. The aim of the Quality Improvement project was to improve child behavior and cooperation during their appointment.
Outcome
The average Frankl score in the non-video group was 3.067 with 30 participants, and the average Frankl score in the video group was 2.875 with 24 participants. The Frankl score averages were similar, with the video group averaging slightly lower. However, there were many confounding factors including but not limited to different patient ages, time of year of appointments, AM or PM appointments, patient mood coming into the appointment, and patients’ past dental experiences. Additionally, due to time constraints of the project, we had to look at different patients. Future studies should be done to follow the same patient and observe their Frankl scores before the video for one recall visit and then with the video on the next recall visit to more accurately determine the effects of the video. Overall, children enjoyed the video, making it a fun tool to familiarize them with the dental environment.