Proactive Oral Health Services for Children Aged 0-5 Years Old

Abstract

The objectives of this action research were to: 1)  develop a data collection model. Access to dental services for children 0-5 years old in accordance with the data in the Health Data Center database 2) develop a series of proactive service activities to be more efficient and reduce the redundant data collections, and 3) monitor and evaluate the development of data collection models and dental services provided for children 0-5 years old. The target group included 1,778 children aged 0-5 years in Chai Badan district, Lopburi province in 2021. Quantitative data were collected from dental services for children 0-5 years of age. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics including percentages, means and standard deviations. Inferential statistics were used to determine the relationships between factors using t-test for independent samples with significance level of 0.01.

The results showed that 1) over 80 percent of children aged 0-5 years old were examined by dental personnel. Among them, 41.81 percent were provided with fluoride coating/applying, 36.83 percent were provided with brushing instructions and dental services Activities titled ‘good teeth without caries’ and ‘activities of children without cavities’ reached 45.95% of the children; 2) there were proactive dental services, including new proactive home visits with added communication channels between dental personnel and child caregivers; 3) dentists and dental personnel who worked in district health promotion hospitals in the same area could provide online consultations. It was found that, after organizing a series of proactive service activities, number of visits for oral health examinations significantly increased from 170 persons to 817 persons at p=0.01.