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Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UC San Francisco Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2013)

Background: Twitter is a social networking site that has become a leading global real-time communications platform. Twitter users post brief 140-character long messages (`tweets') on a variety of topics. To date, it is not known what parents are saying about their children's oral health on Twitter.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand parents' actions and perceptions towards their child's oral health on the Twitter.

Methods: Publically available tweets on Twitter were extracted from 14 randomly selected non-consecutive days in December 2012 and January 2013. A total of 1451 tweets meeting the search criteria were extracted and, after excluding ambiguous or irrelevant tweets, a total of 1073 tweets were included and analyzed. Tweets were coded using pre-established non-mutually exclusive categories.

Results: The 1073 included tweets were coded into 5 main categories: attitude (n=606, 56.6%), event (n=535, 49.9%), action (n=499, 46.5%), concern/question (n=203, 19%), and behavior (n=77, 7%). The proportions of tweets with negative (n=321, 53.0%) and positive (n=285, 47.0%) attitudes expressed by parents were similar. The most frequent reported events included eruption (n=237, 44.3%), exfoliation (n=194, 36.3%) and grinding (n=62, 11.6%). The most frequently reported actions were general dental appointment (n=204, 40.9%), prevention (n=165, 33.1%), and extraction (n=44, 8.8%). A majority of the tweets describing children's behaviors were negative (n=55, 71%) rather than positive (n=22, 29%) ones. The most frequent concerns and questions were about esthetics (n=57, 28%), eruption (n=34, 17%) and dental home/access to care (n=27, 13%).

Conclusions: Twitter can serve as a rich source of data on parental perceptions and actions towards their child's oral health. Parents report their child's dental events, actions and behaviors, as well as express concerns, questions and attitudes on Twitter. Parents frequently report their child's dental visits. Among those who report an attitude about these dental visits, only 1 in 3 are positive. Future research is warranted to understand factors contributing to positive and negative attitudes toward pediatric dental care. As Twitter evolves the way society interacts and communicates, it is critical for oral health professionals to actively monitor and engage in the dialogue to improve societal health and well-being.

    Cover page: Public Health Surveillance of Pediatric Dentistry via Twitter
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC San Francisco Previously Published Works (2013)
    The aim of this study was to evaluate whether an interdisciplinary, multifaceted oral health education program delivered to pediatric nurse practitioner students at the University of California, San Francisco, would improve their knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and behaviors regarding the provision of oral health assessments, consultations, referrals, and services to young children during well-child visits. Thirty pediatric nurse practitioner students were included in the study. Participants completed a written survey before and after receiving an interdisciplinary educational intervention that included didactic education, simulation exercises, and clinical observation by a pediatric dental resident. Between pre-intervention and post-intervention, a significant improvement was seen in the pediatric nurse practitioners knowledge of oral health topics (p<0.001), confidence when providing oral health counseling (p<0.001), and attitudes about including oral health counseling in their examinations (p=0.006). In the post-intervention survey, 83 percent of the subjects reported having incorporated oral examinations into their well-child visits. Our study suggests that providing an interdisciplinary oral health educational program for pediatric nurse practitioner students can improve their knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and behaviors regarding the incorporation of oral health care services during routine well-child visits.
      Cover page: Oral health education for pediatric nurse practitioner students.
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC San Francisco Previously Published Works (2013)
      The aim of this study was to evaluate whether an interdisciplinary, multifaceted oral health education program delivered to pediatric nurse practitioner students at the University of California, San Francisco, would improve their knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and behaviors regarding the provision of oral health assessments, consultations, referrals, and services to young children during well-child visits. Thirty pediatric nurse practitioner students were included in the study. Participants completed a written survey before and after receiving an interdisciplinary educational intervention that included didactic education, simulation exercises, and clinical observation by a pediatric dental resident. Between pre-intervention and post-intervention, a significant improvement was seen in the pediatric nurse practitioners' knowledge of oral health topics (p<0.001), confidence when providing oral health counseling (p<0.001), and attitudes about including oral health counseling in their examinations (p=0.006). In the post-intervention survey, 83 percent of the subjects reported having incorporated oral examinations into their well-child visits. Our study suggests that providing an interdisciplinary oral health educational program for pediatric nurse practitioner students can improve their knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and behaviors regarding the incorporation of oral health care services during routine well-child visits.
        Cover page: Oral Health Education for Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Students
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