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

Abstract

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. 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. 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. 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). 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.