Oral Health Promotion: Youth as Agents Of Change

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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This upstream communication study may aid in our understanding of the nature of the parent-adolescent relationship and how we can use this relationship to promote better oral health of the parents and adolescents.

Detailed Description
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Given the proliferation of social media as a tool for health communication, this proposed pilot study will be conducted with adolescents and their parents in the greater Richmond area, including Petersburg, and examines whether disseminating oral health information to adolescents via Facebook will have a greater impact on their sharing of the message to their parents than providing them the information in written format- using a pamphlet. We hypothesize that parents in the Facebook arm of the intervention will be more likely to report receiving the oral health message from their child than those in the pamphlet arm. Further, this study investigates whether parents whose adolescents re provided the information via Facebook will have greater increase in intent to schedule dental appointments and dental appointment scheduling behaviors than parents whose children are in the pamphlet group. We hypothesize that parents in the Facebook group will report greater increase in dental appointment scheduling than those whose adolescents are in the pamphlet group. Lastly, we would like to explore whether parents and adolescents in the Facebook arm will have greater increase in oral health knowledge and greater decreases in perceived barriers to oral health activities, both which may be related to increases in parents' dental appointment scheduling.

Official Title
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Oral Health Promotion: Youth as Agents Of Change

Conditions
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Oral Hygiene

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Social media


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: enrolled in grades 7 through 12 between the ages of 12 and 18 currently living in the same household as their legal guardian(s) who agree to participate in this study live in the greater Richmond and Petersburg area uses a smartphone has not had a dental appointment in the past 6 months Exclusion Criteria: not between the ages of 12 and 18 do not live with their legal guardian (s) are not residents of the greater Richmond and Petersburg area have had a dental appointment in the past six months legal guardian does not agree to participate

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 12 Years
Maximum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| No Intervention: Pamphlet<br>Provided with only a pamphlet containing educational material about oral health | |
| Experimental: Social media<br>Provided pamphlet containing educational material about oral health and will have access to a private Facebook group, where we will share informational messages and content relating to oral health | Behavioral: Social media<br>* Provided pamphlet and a private Facebook group where informational messages and content relating to oral health will be shared<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Communication | Sharing of health information measured as a count of shared oral health messages reported on a survey question. | 8 weeks | 
| Appointment - child | Number of child dental appointments scheduled based on self-report | 8 weeks | 
| Appointment - adult | Number of adult dental appointments scheduled based on self-report | 8 weeks | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Oral health knowledge | Change in number of correct responses on a 12 item oral health knowledge and screening survey | Baseline to 8 weeks | 
| Perceived barriers | Change in number of barriers to oral health activities | Baseline to 8 weeks |