Dental Care Fight Gingivitis

This study examined the content and general readability of pediatric oral health education materials for parents of young children.

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Twenty-seven pediatric oral health pamphlets or brochures from government, industry, and private sources nonprofit were analyzed for general reading according to several parameters: readability, thoroughness, (inclusion of issues important to young children’s oral health); textual framework (frequency of complex sentences, using pictures, diagrams, and bullet text within materials) and terminology (frequency of difficult words and dental jargon).
Results

Readability of written texts ranged from 2nd to 9th grade. The average level of government publications was equivalent to a grade 4th reading level trade publications for an average of and industry published materials read an average.

Smog readability analysis, based on a count of polysyllabic words, consistently rated materials 2 to 3 degrees higher than the previous analysis. Government sources were significantly lower compared with the commercial and industry sources for the right readability level of analysis and smog. The content analysis found materials trade and industry sources more complex than government-sponsored publications, whereas commercial sources were more in-depth coverage of pediatric oral health topics. Different materials often conflicting information.
Conclusion

Pediatric oral health care materials are readily available, but their quality and readability are very diverse. In general, government publications are more readable than their commercial counterparts and industry. Usability criteria and the results of the analyzes presented in this article may be used by consumers of dental educational materials to ensure that their choices are well adapted to their specific patient population.
Background

In the U.S., dental care is the most prevalent unmet health need of children. Despite the recent decline in childhood dental caries, is an increase in children ages 2 to 5 years. Oral health disparities in the U.S. still exist, especially for children from poor and culturally different backgrounds. Among children ages 2 to 5 years, 75% of dental caries found in 8% of the population. If left untreated, childhood caries can lead to problems with eating, speaking, and learning.  The effects of dental pain may be misinterpreted by teachers as a behavior problem.

Infancy and childhood are the most dynamic period of dental growth, so that educate parents on children’s dental care is critical during these periods. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Association of Pediatric Dentists recommends that children visit a dentist for oral health risk assessment within 6 months of birth and establish a dental “home” for children less than 1.

The creation of good dental habits is the result of a communication chain from supplier to the parents for the pediatric patient. Parents and guardians, and other caregiving adults, have the primary responsibility for daily care and prevention services, and monitors are to create, maintain, and passing along a good oral health routine for their children. This requires an understanding of dental development and how to maintain good oral health. A dentist by profession and its primary commercial subsidiaries serve on the education of parents. To help parents understand the value of early dental care and home oral hygiene, educational messages should be easy to understand and relevant. Materials to communicate oral health information in writing should be created to maximize readability and understanding and in full recognition that many, including parents, have limited literacy.

It is estimated that in the USA at least 40 million adults have below-average literacy (5th-grade reading level), and maybe unable to read or understand written basic information that most people take for granted. It is likely, given the specific context of the nature of health and technical jargon, an individual’s health literacy lags behind the general level of literacy. In fact, the Institute of Medicine recently reported that ninety million American adults have difficulty understanding health information and following treatment plans. Consequently, millions of Americans, including millions of parents, may not be able to fully comprehend basic pediatric health information. Electronic Cigarette Research about smoking bad breath medical research

Despite the current medical research on health literacy, few studies have examined oral health literacy. The scope of the problem of low oral health literacy levels among parents of pediatric patients is presented by Jackson

who suggests several methods to improve patient-provider communication, including the use of grade-level analysis as a means for dentists to assess pediatric education materials. One such study by Alexander analyzed the readability of the 24 general dental educational publications. We found that 41.7 percent of the materials were written at a grade level higher than grade 8. A similar study used Alexander’s trust framework for analysis and investigated the readability of pediatric oral health-specific educational materials. We are extending this research in addition to the evaluation of readability and thoroughness, textual framework, and terminology of 27 publications from a diverse group of sources: the ADA, government health sources, and commercial organizations. Our analysis of the differences in the readability of source documents (commercial, industrial, and government) is similar to that of Harrison and Hardwood tested the readability of orthodontic patient information leaflets. Our approach provides a framework for selecting the most readable and comprehensive pediatric oral health materials based on multiple parameters. The results presented here provide dentists and other providers of oral health services with an analysis of the materials available today.

The frame itself can be used today and in the future to select materials that are highly readable and comprehensive in content.
Methods
Pediatric Dentistry educational materials

Twenty leaflets and brochures have been examined in this study. Most materials are readily and publicly available at no cost, those with a cost attached could be previewed in PDF format or obtained by mail. They were obtained from various sources, including local pediatric dental practices, online web sites from commercial sources (Crest, Oral B, and Colgate), government, and industry sources. Many of the publications available online in PDF format. Most government publications were mailed to the study author by request, samples of each publication in this study were available at no cost.

Tests for differences of origin of the publication were examined by the following characteristics: format, content, and readability. Tests were one-way analysis of variance followed by the Tv2 test to identify significant pairwise differences between means.