Child health providers' role in meeting unmet oral health needs of children with special health care needs: The BLOCK oral disease toolkit implementation and evaluation

Background: Oral diseases are preventable, yet they continue to disproportionately affect high-risk children. The National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN) 2005-2006 revealed that preventive dental care was the number one unmet healthcare need for this population. Even though the American Academy of Pediatrics supports oral health integration, there is a lack of educational information available to medical professionals on this topic. Consequently, most child health providers aren't addressing preventive oral health regularly in high-risk populations.

Methods: A Toolkit and oral health training was developed for child health providers and other health care professionals. It was developed and pilot tested with medical and dental professionals, in addition to parents of CSHCN. At each training site, pretests and posttests were administered to measure the target audience's change in knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy to implement oral health assessments and fluoride varnish application in the medical setting.

Results: Child health providers had an increase in knowledge and positive attitudes about children's oral health. They also indicated a higher self-efficacy to integrate oral anticipatory guidance and prevention interventions into medical practice, which will increase CSHCN access to preventive dental care.

Conclusions: Child health providers must be involved in the effort to meet the unmet oral health needs of CSHCN. The combination of educational materials and hands-on training can successfully increase medical providers' knowledge and positive attitudes about oral health, which was determined to enhance the acceptance and likelihood of preventive oral health integration in the medical setting.