Elsevier

Dental Abstracts

Volume 62, Issue 2, March–April 2017, Pages 103-104
Dental Abstracts

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Motivating patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.denabs.2016.09.046Get rights and content

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Background

A conservative approach to nonsurgical treatment of periodontal disease consists of in-office therapies such as scaling and root planing (SRP) combined with antibiotics plus daily in-home oral hygiene procedures to remove the plaque biofilm. However, patients often do not adhere to the routine prescribed for them. A quick review of the oral hygiene procedures and products recommended by many dentists and dental hygienists for patients with periodontal disease was performed, along with useful,

Oral Hygiene Procedures and Products

Once the patient has undergone SRP and a course of antimicrobial and/or antibiotic agents, he or she is instructed to perform consistent oral hygiene at home. Generally this includes brushing twice a day and performing interdental cleaning once a day, along with making a trip to see the dentist twice a year. Little evidence supports these 6-monthly dental visits, and individual variations in risk for disease progression should be considered. Some patients will do fine with a once-yearly visit;

Modifying Oral Health Behaviors

Using counseling approaches may achieve the goal of motivating patients to perform preventive-care practices regularly. As a result, both the patients and the health care provider will benefit. A proven effective strategy to improve plaque control and clinical periodontal outcomes is motivational interviewing.

Motivational interviewing is a person-centered, goal-directed way to communicate designed to elicit and strengthen one’s intrinsic motivation for making a positive change in behavior. It

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Wilder RS, Bray KS: Improving periodontal outcomes: Merging clinical and behavioral science. Periodontology 2000 71:65-81, 2016

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