Oral Health Intervention for Caregivers of Children Presenting for Dental Surgery

Recruiting now · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Early Childhood Caries

In brief

Too many young children, particularly those living in poverty, present for dental surgery under anesthesia - an expensive, potentially dangerous, short-term fix that often results in recurring oral health disease and subsequent surgeries. Dr. Helen Lee, an anesthesiologist, and Dr. Joanna Buscemi, a clinical health psychologist, recognized that to decrease need for surgeries, caregivers need resources and support to build their skills and knowledge around managing their child's oral health. After 5 years of relationship-building, publishing preliminary qualitative work, and building a team with the appropriate skills and knowledge, investigators developed a grant application to develop and test a parenting intervention for caregivers of preschool- aged children presenting for dental surgery. With support from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the team created the PROTECT intervention with a focus on providing caregivers with parenting and behavioral tools to help improve tooth brushing and lower added sugar intake while simultaneously addressing social determinants of health that make behavior change more difficult. Community health workers will engage with caregivers for 6 months following the child's surgery to deliver PROTECT and support parents in behavioral change. A surgical event is a unique opportunity to change behaviors in systemically oppressed families that have manifested a need for behavior change. This intervention will meet caregivers needs at a critical time when risk disease recurrence intersects with a desire to change. This work has the potential to not only improve oral health of entire households but may also have a concomitant effect on parallel diseases, such as pediatric obesity.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT07220850

Run by

University of Illinois at Chicago

People needed

420

Starts

2025-09-30

Expected to finish

2028-09-01

Last updated by the study team

2026-05-08

Who can join

Age: any, up to 7. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• caregivers of child patients who are in the same household greater than or equal to 50% of the week
• caregivers aged 18-90 years
• caregivers with access to a computer or a telephone
• child patients that are less than 96 months of age at the time of enrollment scheduled for DGA at the UIC clinic

You may not qualify if…

• surgical child is foster status
• families who are planning to move out of state within the six-month period
• children with systemic health issues as classified by American Society of Anesthesiology Classification of greater than or equal to 3, or a mental health condition such as autism/developmental delay, as medical complexity is associated with other issues that influence a child's health behaviors and caregiver-child interactions
• and adults unable to consent.

Where it is running

• College of Dentistry (MC 621) — Chicago, Illinois, United States (enrolling)

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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