Long‐term effects of a lay health advisor intervention on immigrant children's dental caries and maternal preventive behaviour: A randomized controlled trial.

Objectives: An oral health disparity exists between native and immigrant children in Taiwan. This study evaluated the long‐term effectiveness of a lay health advisor (LHA) intervention on immigrant children's dental caries and maternal preventive behaviours. Methods: Fifty‐one immigrant mother‐child pairs were randomly assigned to LHA intervention (n = 23) and control (n = 28) groups. Mothers in the LHA group received a four‐chapter one‐on‐one lesson plan, which included dental caries–related knowledge, brushing techniques, caries prevention and free preventive services, from the LHA over 4 weeks. Mothers in the control group received only a health brochure. Baseline and 1‐week, 2‐month, and 8‐month follow‐up information was collected using dental examinations and questionnaires. Results: The mean ages of the children in the LHA and control groups were 4.0 ± 1.4 and 4.2 ± 1.5, respectively. The decayed, missing due to caries, filled teeth (dmft) index in the LHA and control groups was 4.8 ± 6.0 and 5.4 ± 5.4, respectively, at baseline. At the 8‐month postintervention follow‐up, the number of filled teeth (ft) in the LHA group was higher than that in the control group (β = 8.3, P =.033). The effect size (ES) demonstrated an upward trend at 1‐week, 2‐month and 8‐month follow‐ups in ft (ES = 0.21, 0.50 and 0.59, respectively) and a decrease in the number of decayed teeth (dt) (ES = 0.30, 0.43 and 0.57, respectively). The mothers in the LHA group were observed to be 10.9 times more likely than control mothers to assist their children in toothbrushing for 3 min at the 1‐week follow‐up (95% CI = 1.98‐59.40, P =.006). Conclusions: The LHA intervention strategy had positive effects on the immigrant children's new dt and ft and on maternal preventive behaviour, such as assisting their children in toothbrushing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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