Improving Autistic Children's Experiences of Dental Care With Class-integrated Social Story: a Randomised Controlled Trial and Cost-benefit Analysis

Status: Recruiting
Location: See location...
Intervention Type: Behavioral
Study Type: Interventional
Study Phase: Not Applicable
SUMMARY

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more likely to have unmet dental needs. Due to hypersensitivity and oral defensiveness, new or unexpected stimuli during dental examinations often precipitate anxiety and stress. These dental barriers often exacerate the difficulties in managing ASD children during periodic comprehensive dental reviews, which are essential for prevention, early identification and management of oral problems, and maintenance of good oral health. Social story is a training approach constituting short stories and visual cues designed to convey information in a step-by-step manner, to help ASD children know what to expect and how to behave in different situations in daily life, and to gradually allow them to adjust to essential daily tasks. Our previous publications reported the success of social stories in improving oral health among ASD children, but its use in improving their experience in dental care and reducing their dental fear were only been validated in small-scale trials. Our team has developed and validated a dental-visit social story (DVSS) in collaboration with a review panel comprising of paediatric dentist, clinical psychiatrist and psychologist, speech and hearing therapist, dental practitioner, occupational therapist, social worker, and caregivers and teachers of ASD preschool children. A randomised controlled trial is conducted to compare and evaluate the clinical efficacy and cost benefits of DVSS among ASD preschool children. ASD preschool children are recruited and randomly allocated into two groups after baseline examination. Group 1 will receive class-integrated DVSS at baseline and then weekly class-integrated social story reinforcement sessions at the first two months, whereas Group 2 will receive 8 weekly social stories reinforcement on an unrelated topic. Both groups will be examined at 3, 6, 12 and 18 months with conventional non-pharmacological behavioural management techniques (CNPBMT). The outcome domains to be evaluated include the time required for the ASD preschool children to complete a compreheisve dental exams, their cooperativeness and anxiety levels during the dental examination, and cost benefits when class-integrated social stories were used with CNPBMT, versus CNPBMT alone. The knowledge generated can be translated into practice, addressing the current dental barriers and improving patient care among ASD children.

Eligibility
Participation Requirements
Sex: All
Minimum Age: 3
Maximum Age: 7
Healthy Volunteers: f
View:

• Preschool children will be eligible if they have been diagnosed with ASD, following signed parental consent and completion of the questionnaire.

• The proposed study will target Hong Kong preschool children diagnosed with ASD

• Have their full primary dentition erupted

• Able to understand and benefit from social stories (Gray, 2000).

Locations
Other Locations
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong
RECRUITING
Hong Kong
Contact Information
Primary
Phoebe Pui Ying Lam
pyphoebe@hku.hk
+852 28590578
Time Frame
Start Date: 2025-01-01
Estimated Completion Date: 2028-12-31
Participants
Target number of participants: 106
Treatments
Experimental: Intervention
The intervention group will receive a validated social story ECOHC and reinforcement sessions after baseline recruitment. The developed and validated social story will be distributed to the participants in the intervention group. The same research assistant will visit their SCCCs 8 times to provide weekly class-integrated social story reinforcement sessions at 1-2 months.~All children will receive dental examinations at their respective SCCCs at 3, 6, 12, 18 months.
No_intervention: Control
The control group will not receive any social story or reinforcement session throughout the study period.~All children will receive dental examinations at their respective SCCCs at 3, 6, 12, 18 months.
Related Therapeutic Areas
Sponsors
Leads: The University of Hong Kong

This content was sourced from clinicaltrials.gov