Introduction: Traumatic dental injuries are considered a dental public health problem due to their high prevalence worldwide. Major complications can be associated with trauma, affecting the quality of life of patients and their parents/carers. Information retention has been reported to decrease following stressful situations. It is important to understand the information seeking behavior (ISB) of these families to help them understand and retain information provided regarding dental trauma. Aims: To investigate the ways in which dental trauma patients and their parents, look for information, the reasons why, and the types of information they would like to receive. Also to draw comparisons between children and their parents regarding ISB. Method: This was a mixed qualitative and quantitative prospective study included two phases. Phase one involved qualitative data collection from in-depth interviews conducted with trauma patients and their parents. These interviews were analysed using framework analysis and commonly occurring concepts identified. Phase II of the study involved distributing patient and parent questionnaires, based on the themes and subthemes identified from the interviews. Results of phase I: One-to-one in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 patients and 11 parents. Patients’ interviews identified 10 main themes while parents’ interviews identified 8 main themes. Each one of these themes incorporated subthemes. The themes were used to develop patient and parent-based questionnaires, which were piloted with 13 patients prior to phase II. Results of phase II: questionnaires were distributed to 68 patients and 70 parents. Initially, the majority of patients wanted to know if their tooth could be saved, possible outcomes and planned procedures to treat their teeth. Concerns during treatment were mainly about function and aesthetics. Patients preferred to receive this information verbally from their dentist. Parents initial concerns were similar to the patients’, and included the possible long-term outcome, severity of the trauma, possibility of maintaining the tooth and available treatment options. During treatment, the majority of parents were also worried about aesthetics and the possibility of the tooth losing vitality. In the long-term, parents were mostly concerned about available treatment options when their V children reached adulthood. Parents’ preferred to receive written information in the form of summary letter or booklet. Conclusion: It is important to understand that the information needs of patients and parents differ and to tailor information provision for each group accordingly.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:631844 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Bamashmous, N. O. M. |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1449255/ |
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