Improving Patient Understanding of Hypodontia
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving Patient Understanding of Hypodontia
IRAS ID
128642
Contact name
Richard Foxton
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Research summary
The term Hypodontia is used to describe patients who have developmentally missing teeth (excluding wisdom teeth). In addition, patients may have small or misshapen teeth and sometimes the jaw bone which supports the teeth does not grow as much as normal. Permanent teeth which are present may erupt late. All of the above may affect the patient both physically and emotionally.
Patients affected by hypodontia (and their parents) should ideally attend a joint Multidisciplinary Hypodontia clinic where the peadodontist, orthodontist and restorative dentists are present formulating a combined treatment plan. Due to the busy nature of this clinic, the specialists are required to work efficiently but yet giving the patient (and their parent) valid information in a limited amount of time.
To our knowledge no investigation has looked at the patient’s experience particularly keeping in mind the environmental constraints of the situational context. Also, there has been limited evidence on what information the patients would think to be relevant and should be informed of, before starting the treatment journey.
Previous studies have shown that patients may forget the information given during a consultation within 5 minutes of leaving the room and providing them with information material improves their recall of the information and facilitates informed consent. Therefore, it is the aim of this study to develop a hypodontia media tool helping to improve the quality of information given to the patients before obtaining informed consent.
This study is a cross-sectional qualitative/quantitative study based on semi-structured focus groups as well as questionnaires and will be divided into four stages.
Stage 1: Semi-structured focus groups to assess existing knowledge of the patients about their condition before attending the hypodontia clinic. Also, determining what information they have sought beforehand and to analyse the sources. In addition, identifying what they would like to be informed of before and during the consultation and what kind of media formats the patients would prefer.
Stage 2: Preliminary information material will be developed.
Stage 3: Semi-structured focus groups testing the newly developed material by seeking the opinions of the hypodontia patients. Also, assess the quality, readability and clarity of the information given in the material.
Stage 4: Randomised control trial evaluating level of patient knowledge after intervening with the media toll achieving final validation of the information material.REC name
London - Chelsea Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/1146
Date of REC Opinion
6 Nov 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion