Established Evidence Results

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): CLASSROOM_SCHOOL, School-Based Dental Screening

Intervention Description: Researchers identified and searched multiple databases to search for randomized control trials that evaluated school dental screening compared with no intervention or with one type of screening compared with another.

Intervention Results: Researchers found very low-certainty evidence that did not allow for conclusions to be drawn about whether there is a role for traditional school dental screening in improving dental attendance. For criteriabased screening, researchers found low-certainty evidence thatit may improve dental attendance when compared to no screening. However, when compared to traditional screening, there is no evidence of a difference in dental attendance (very low-certainty evidence).

Conclusion: The trials included in this review evaluated short‐term effects of screening. We found very low‐certainty evidence that is insufficient to allow us to draw conclusions about whether there is a role for traditional school dental screening in improving dental attendance. For criteria‐based screening, we found low‐certainty evidence that it may improve dental attendance when compared to no screening. However, when compared to traditional screening, there is no evidence of a difference in dental attendance (very low‐certainty evidence). We found low‐certainty evidence to conclude that personalised or specific referral letters may improve dental attendance when compared to non‐specific counterparts. We also found low‐certainty evidence that screening supplemented with motivation (oral health education and offer of free treatment) may improve dental attendance in comparison to screening alone. For children requiring treatment, we found very‐low certainty evidence that was inconclusive regarding whether or not a referral letter based on the 'common‐sense model of self‐regulation' was better than a standard referral letter. We did not find any trials addressing possible adverse effects of school dental screening or evaluating its effectiveness for improving oral health.

Setting: School/preschool

Population of Focus: Children and adolescents ages 4 to 15

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): CLASSROOM_SCHOOL, School-Based Dental Screening

Intervention Description: Researchers identified and searched multiple databases to search for randomized control trials that evaluated school dental screening compared with no intervention or with another type of screening

Intervention Results: The systematic review found there was very low certainty of evidence to support the role of school screening programmes in improving dental attendance. There was a low certainty of evidence to conclude that criteria-based screening, personalised referral letters or screening supplemented with motivation improve dental attendance.

Conclusion: The systematic review found there was very low certainty of evidence to support the role of school screening programmes in improving dental attendance. There was a low certainty of evidence to conclude that criteria-based screening, personalised referral letters or screening supplemented with motivation improve dental attendance.

Setting: School/preschool

Population of Focus: Children and adolescents ages 4 to 16

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): CLASSROOM_SCHOOL, School-Based Dental Screening

Intervention Description: Researchers conducted a review of the literature to understand the differences in dentla attendance rates of children receiving a school based dental screening versus those not receiving it.

Intervention Results: Researchers found very low certainty evidence that was insufficient to allow them to draw conclusions about whether there is a role for traditional school dental screening in improving dental attendance. In addition, when compared to traditional screening there was no evidence of a difference in dental attendance (very low-certainty evidence).

Conclusion: The trials included in this review evaluated short-term effects of screening, assessing follow-up periods of three to eight months. We found very low certainty evidence that was insufficient to allow us to draw conclusions about whether there is a role for traditional school dental screening in improving dental attendance. For criteria-based screening, we found low-certainty evidence that it may improve dental attendance when compared to no screening. However, when compared to traditional screening there was no evidence of a difference in dental attendance (very low-certainty evidence). We found low-certainty evidence to conclude that personalised or specific referral letters improve dental attendance when compared to non-specific counterparts. We also found low-certainty evidence that screening supplemented with motivation (oral health education and offer of free treatment) improves dental attendance in comparison to screening alone. We did not find any trials addressing cost-effectiveness and adverse effects of school dental screening.

Setting: School/preschool

Population of Focus: Children and adolescents

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): CLASSROOM_SCHOOL, School-Based Dental Screening

Intervention Description: Researchers conducted a review of the literature to understand the differences in dentla attendance rates of children receiving a school based dental screening versus those not receiving it.

Intervention Results: For an intracluster correlation coefficient of 0.030, there was no statistically significant difference in dental attendance between children who received dental screening and those who did not receive dental screening (RR 1.11, 95% 0.97, 1.27).

Conclusion: There is currently no evidence to support or refute the clinical benefits or harms of dental screening. Routine dental screening may not increase the dental attendance of school children, but there is a lot of uncertainty in this finding because of the quality of evidence.

Setting: School/preschool

Population of Focus: Children aged 3-18 years

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): CLASSROOM_SCHOOL, School-Based Dental Screening

Intervention Description: Researchers conducted a review of the literature to understand the differences in dental attendance rates of children receiving a school based dental screening versus those not receiving it.

Intervention Results: The review concludes that school based dental screening marginally increases the dental attendance by 16 percent as opposed to a non-screening group (RR 1.16 (95% CI 1.11, 1.21). The quality of evidence was found to be low.

Conclusion: There is evidence of marginally increased dental attendance rate of 16 % following screening. As the quality of evidence was found to be low, the results of this review may be used with caution.

Setting: School/preschool

Population of Focus: Children below 15 years of age

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): School-Based Dental Screening, Teledentistry, HEALTH_CARE_PROVIDER_PRACTICE, CLASSROOM_SCHOOL

Intervention Description: The purpose of this paper was to describe how two school-based teledentistry programs increased access to oral health services for children and adolescents living in rural areas.

Intervention Results: Both MCHS and CDS reported that over 99 percent of encounters were successfully completed using telehealth technology. Both grantees reported that 99.4 percent of students received an oral health evaluation/screening, primarily through a dental hygienist traveling to the school site connected to a dentist or advanced dental therapist through telehealth. One half of the students had dental caries (50.6 % MCHS; 48.6% CDS). Both grantees referred all students with dental caries for oral health follow-up care.

Conclusion: By utilizing dental hygienists traveling to school sites and connecting with centrally located dental professionals through telehealth, both grantees increased access to needed oral health care services for rural children. Oral health screening in school settings using dental hygienists with teledentistry can provide an efficient way to identify students at high risk for dental caries and offer a valuable strategy for oral disease prevention and control.