Dental avoidance in adolescents is associated with higher rates of caries and may continue for years if untreated. Avoidance is postulated to be the result of dental fear and negative perceptions of dental attendance, and may begin in adolescence as youth are increasingly able to influence dental attendance, compared with children. Motivational Interviewing (MI), a counseling technique particularly useful for individuals who are ambivalent about making a behavior change, has been found to be efficacious in a number of health areas, including alcohol and nicotine cessation, dietary change, exercise change, contraceptive use, safer sex practices, and others. In dentistry, to date the following effects of MI have been described: MI components successfully discriminate between those who practice desirable oral health behaviors and those who do not;MI counseling for young mothers is successful in reducing early childhood caries;dental students who learn MI counseling demonstrate differences in subsequent patient interviews;and dentally-avoidant find the MI approach to be relevant and useful. These preliminary results, together with those from research in related health areas, indicate that MI may be efficacious in ameliorating dental avoidance in adolescents. Computerized and web-based applications save dental personnel time and money, may be accessed where there is no readily-available dental or mental health professional, and have high appeal to adolescents. One complete web-based MI intervention has been developed to date, for excessive alcohol use, and has been found to significantly decrease alcohol consumption.
The specific aims of this project are to develop MI components for adolescent dental avoidance, test the efficacy of the MI intervention with dentally-avoidant adolescents, and create a software package which will permit individuals to access the complete MI package via computer or the web.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)
Type
Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23)
Project #
5K23DE016952-05
Application #
8103038
Study Section
NIDCR Special Grants Review Committee (DSR)
Program Officer
King, Lynn M
Project Start
2007-08-17
Project End
2014-01-31
Budget Start
2011-08-01
Budget End
2014-01-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2011
Total Cost
$119,686
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Washington
Department
Dentistry
Type
Schools of Dentistry
DUNS #
605799469
City
Seattle
State
WA
Country
United States
Zip Code
98195
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Coolidge, Trilby; Skaret, Erik; Heima, Masahiro et al. (2011) Thinking about going to the dentist: a Contemplation Ladder to assess dentally-avoidant individuals' readiness to go to a dentist. BMC Oral Health 11:4
Coolidge, Trilby; Hillstead, M Blake; Farjo, Nadia et al. (2010) Additional psychometric data for the Spanish Modified Dental Anxiety Scale, and psychometric data for a Spanish version of the Revised Dental Beliefs Survey. BMC Oral Health 10:12
Coolidge, Trilby; Heaton, Lisa J; Milgrom, Peter (2009) The challenge of sedation with adolescents: case studies and clinical recommendations. SAAD Dig 25:29-36
Weinstein, P; Coolidge, T; Raff, C A et al. (2009) Recruiting rural dentally-avoidant adolescents into an intervention study. Eur Arch Paediatr Dent 10:233-6