Background: Considering the interdisciplinary role dental staff can play in addressing overweight and obesity in childhood, this study aimed to codesign guideline implementation strategies for children's growth assessment and dietary advice guidelines in the dental setting.
Methods: This qualitative study utilised principles of codesign and appreciative inquiry through a series of four, two-hour focus groups with dental staff and parents. Focus groups were analysed using content analysis.
Results: Discussion fell into two main themes, engaging patients throughout their care journey and supporting staff to engage with the guidelines. Six strategies were developed within these themes: (1) providing growth assessment information to patients and families before appointments, (2) providing refresher training to staff, (3) involving dental assistants in the growth assessment, (4) keeping dental staff updated regarding referral outcomes, (5) culturally appropriate information resources for patients and families, and (6) enabling longitudinal growth tracking in patient information systems.
Conclusions: This study successfully designed six implementation strategies for children's growth assessment guidelines in the dental setting. Further research is required to determine their impact on guideline adherence.
Keywords: Childhood; Codesign; Dental; Implementation; Obesity; Overweight.
Being above a healthy weight in childhood is a major public health issue. In parts of Australia, dental staff need to screen for and promote healthy weight among children. As this is not a normal part of dental care, it could be hard for this change to come about. So, this study aimed to create strategies to help dental staff to screen for and promote healthy weight among children. As we wanted those impacted by the strategies to have a say, we worked with public dental staff and parents. When health staff and the community come together to design ways to improve health care, this is known as codesign. In groups, these people codesigned a series of strategies. Strategies for parents included: (1) informing parents about what to expect in their child’s appointment; and (2) creating resources for parents from other cultures. Strategies for dental staff included (1) ensuring staff were trained; (2) involving the whole dental team to save time; (3) ensuring dental staff heard back from services they sent children to for healthy weight support; and (4) creating a way to record children’s growth over time. Bringing in both parents and dental staff gave them a voice to codesign strategies to help dental staff screen and promote healthy weight among children. This produced a suite of strategies that were appropriate for all involved.
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