People more likely to clean teeth with text messages prompts

Young unemployed people more likely to clean their teeth if prompted by text messages

December 1, 2014

Young unemployed people are more likely to clean their teeth more often if they are prompted with text messages, a University of Canterbury health research study has found.

Professor Philip Schluter, the head of Canterbury’s School of Health Sciences, fronted the project with Dr Martin Lee, clinical director of the community dental service at the Canterbury District Health Board, and wanted to confirm if text messaging motivated young Linwood people on welfare benefits to clean their teeth more often.

More than 400 people registered for the trial, of whom 171 were eligible. Self-reported tooth brushing twice or more per day increased from 51 percent to 74 percent as a result of the respondents receiving text messages from the project organisers.

“We didn’t see any important differences between age, gender, or ethnic groups, but attrition was relatively high with only 26 percent still taking part by the ninth week,” Professor Schluter says.

“We found that motivational text messaging increased the amount of times these young people in a hard-to-reach group carrying a disproportionately heavy oral health burden brushed their teeth. However this research warrants further investigation.

“The perception that individuals do not view oral health as an integral part of their well-being has many detrimental effects at the person, community and government levels.

“Oral health in New Zealand has improved. However, there are still large inequalities which urgently need addressing, especially on young Maori and Pasifika men and those in lower socio-economic groups who have lower dental service attendance rates and suffer relatively poorer oral health.

“Oral disease is among the most prevalent chronic diseases in New Zealand and among the most preventable in all age groups. Primary factors associated with increased oral health inequity include unhealthy dietary habits, low income and limited education.

“About 60 percent of people under 18 make use of free preventive treatment and specialist dental services but young adults aged 18 years and over who are no longer eligible for free dental service are less likely to seek treatment.

“When participants were being recruited into our study, 17 percent of young adults aged 15 to 24 years in Canterbury were unemployed. Targeting oral health behaviours and practices in this population has the potential to make a relatively large impact on improving the oral health care status among New Zealanders as a whole and reduce the burden of disease associated with dental problems.”

Professor Schluter says text messaging has been demonstrated to be a successful medium for delivering interventions in a number of health domains including smoking cessation, healthy eating, and sexual health promotion.

ENDS

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