Referral from well-child care clinics to dental clinics leads to earlier initiation of preventive dental visits: A quasi-experimental study

Abstract

Background: An ealy first preventive dental visit for children is recommended no later than twelve months. However, still many children have their first dental visit relatively late.

Aim: To evaluate whether active or passive referral by a well-child care (WCC) physician of babies for a first preventive dental visit leads to earlier initiation of dental care.

Design: From WCC clinics in two Dutch regions, 629 parents of babies participated. Parents received an active referral from a WCC physician for a dental visit for their babies (n = 204) or received care as usual (CAU) (n = 136) in one region and a passive referral (n = 143) or CAU (n = 146) in the other region. Active referral involved parents receiving a scheduled appointment at the dental practice, and passive referral involved parents making an appointment themselves. During the WCC visit, parents completed a baseline questionnaire. At age 2.5 years, parents received a follow-up questionnaire about dental attendance.

Results: Of the active referral intervention group, 59.3% had their first preventive dental visit in their first year compared with 3.7% in the CAU group (p < .001); for the passive referral group, 46.9% compared with 9.6% (p < .001).

Conclusion: Referral of babies by WCC for their first preventive dental visit leads to earlier initiation of dental care. An active referral had a larger effect than passive referral.

Keywords: first dental visit; oral health promotion; referral; well-child care.