Files and links (1)
Free to read and download, Open Access
Dental Caries is still considered one of the most prevalent chronic diseases that affect children in the US. Access to oral care problems could be due to the limited availability of services or unwillingness of people to seek services. As a proposed solution to those challenges, Atraumatic Restorative Technique (ART) was developed in the 1980s as an affordable, patient friendly caries management procedure that does not need extensive operator training or special skills. ART was originally developed to be conducted in field settings; however, after initial evidence of effectiveness, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Dental Federation (FDI) promoted the use of ART in modern clinical settings worldwide. In the US, the practice of ART is not believed to be widely used. This may be a result of little attention given to (ART) in dental education and advanced training.
This dissertation is comprised of three separate studies that investigated the extent and the factors related to the didactic and clinical instruction on ART in US pre- and post-doctoral pediatric dentistry programs and the factors related to the willingness of pediatric dentists to use ART with their child patients. survey post-doctoral pediatric dentistry program directors and pre-doctoral pediatric dentistry program directors. In study III a different instrument was used to survey pediatric dentists in the US. The survey instruments were tested for content and face validity by cognitive analysis interviews and pilot testing. Using web-based survey methodology, two questionnaires were sent out in May 2010 to investigate self-reported use of ART in educational training institutes (study I and II) and in April 2011, a third questionnaire was sent to a random national sample of pediatric dentists (study III). Using a conjoint design, the third questionnaire asked pediatric dentists to rate their willingness to use ART for 9 patients' scenarios. Eighty eight percent of Pediatric Dentistry Residency programs and 66 % of pre-doctoral pediatric dentistry programs in the US provided clinical training on ART; however only 30% of post-doctoral programs and 14 % of pre-doctoral programs used ART "Very Often/ Often" as a caries management technique for their pediatric patients. Pediatric Dentistry residency programs and pre-doctoral pediatric dentistry programs used ART mainly in primary, anterior, single surface cavities and as an interim treatment. Attitudes toward ART alone and after controlling for other variables explained 35% of the level of training on ART in post- doctoral program and 23% in pre-doctoral pediatric dentistry programs. For study III, conjoint analysis showed that being very young and/or uncooperative were the most important reasons practitioners reported a higher likelihood of using ART. Although insurance coverage was the least important factor overall, not having any insurance was identified as an additional important factor in decisions to use ART. Collectively, our results suggest that that the use of ART is not widespread in the US. In addition, ART is viewed by some as a sub optimum treatment and needs to be modified to conform to the US standards of care. On the other hand, educators and pediatric dentists who had positive views of ART thought it could be a valuable treatment for very young, uncooperative children and children with no insurance.