Title

Dietary Counseling In Caries Prevention Ineffective

Clinical Question

Will dietary counseling prevent dental caries?

Clinical Bottom Line

Dietary counseling alone will not prevent dental caries. (See Comments on the CAT below)

Best Evidence

PubMed ID	Author / Year	Patient Group	Study type (level of evidence)
8871028	Kay/1996	Unknown	Meta-Analysis
Key results	Both qualitative and quantitative analysis revealed dental health education had no noticeable effect on dental caries.

Evidence Search

"Health Education"[Mesh]"Dental Caries"[Mesh]

Comments on
The Evidence

In the article by Kay, the individual studies used where assessed for validity and 37 papers scored high enough to be included in the meta-analysis.

Applicability

The meta-analysis is applicable to the average patient with dental caries.

Specialty

(Public Health) (General Dentistry) (Pediatric Dentistry) (Dental Hygiene)

Keywords

Dietary Counseling, Oral Health Promotion, Caries prevention

ID#

764

Date of submission

04/04/2011

E-mail

keym@livemail.uthscsa.edu

Author

Meredith Key

Co-author(s)

Co-author(s) e-mail

Faculty mentor

David Cappelli, DMD, MPH, PhD

Faculty mentor e-mail

CAPPELLI@uthscsa.edu

Basic Science Rationale
(Mechanisms that may account for and/or explain the clinical question, i.e. is the answer to the clinical question consistent with basic biological, physical and/or behavioral science principles, laws and research?)

None available

Comments and Evidence-Based Updates on the CAT
(FOR PRACTICING DENTISTS', FACULTY, RESIDENTS and/or STUDENTS COMMENTS ON PUBLISHED CATs)

by Maritza Flores, Hiral Patel, Aida Ghazvini (San Antonio, TX) on 01/09/2014
A Trip database search on “dietary counseling in preventing dental caries” was performed in January 2014. A more recent publication was found: Sundell, 2013, PMID: 23721034 . This RCT on 160 high caries preschool children showed similar results that demonstrated dietary counseling having similar ineffective results in caries prevention despite seven visits with dental hygienists in the two-year study period.