Can mHealth promotion for parents help to improve their children's oral health? A systematic review

Abstract

ObjectiveThis systematic review evaluated the effectiveness of oral health education using mHealth approach to parents for improving their children's oral health. DataTwelve studies were included after the screening and five studies in the data synthesis. The sample size varied from 34 to 1055. There was a very low level of evidence showing that mHealth approach could increase parents’ knowledge and improve their brushing behaviors for children when compared to a negative control group. There was a low level of evidence showing mHealth approach could be more effective than printed material in increasing the parents’ oral health knowledge. SourcesThis systematic review was registered on PROSPERO (#CRD42021289324) with no funding support. Study selectionStudies targeting parents/caregivers of children age 12 or under were included. Interventions should be oral health promotion delivered via mobile devices. Study outcomes were parents’ oral health knowledge, attitude and behaviors, and children's oral health status. Eight electronic databases/registration platforms: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, WoS, Global Health, Engineering Village 2, WHO ICTRP and ClinicalTrials.gov were lastly searched on 6th Oct 2021. The risk of bias tools used were RoB 2.0, ROBINS-I and NIH quality assessment tool for pre-post study. Meta-analysis using a fixed-effect model or vote counting based on the direction of effect was performed. ConclusionAll included studies had a high risk of bias. Low/very low certainty of evidence existed that the mHealth approach could improve parents’ oral health knowledge. However, there lacks evidence to show the effects of mHealth intervention exerted on other outcomes. Clinical SignificanceThe mHealth intervention could be a good approach to improve the parent's oral health knowledge. However, the theoretical model must be considered when designing the educational content. More research should be conducted to test the effectiveness of mHealth approaches on children's oral health status.