A Comparison of the Costs and Patient Acceptability of Professionally Applied Topical Fluoride Foam and Varnish
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: In Canada and the United States, professionally applied topical fluorides (PATF) are usually applied as a gel or foam. However, fluoride varnish has also been found to be effective for caries prevention and may be a preferred method because less time is required and fluoride exposure can be better controlled. The goal of this study was to compare the costs and patient acceptability of two methods of PATF (foam and varnish). METHODS: The study population was a convenience sample of high-risk children from the York Region and the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, who had been identified as requiring fluoride therapy (n = 256). Children received from dental hygienists either fluoride foam applied in trays or fluoride varnish painted on tooth surfaces. An observer recorded the time to perform each procedure, adverse outcomes, and the satisfaction of children with treatment. RESULTS: The varnish technique took significantly less time compared to foam (5.81 vs 7.86 minutes; P < .0001). Significant differences between procedure times were found in all age groups, but the largest difference was for children aged 3-6 years (5.22 vs 8.61 minutes; P < .0001). Signs of gagging were observed in a lower proportion of participants who received varnish (3.8% vs 15.1%; P < .01), and this difference was largest for children aged 3-6 years (2.6% vs 29.7%; P < .01). The cost per varnish application, for children aged 3-6 years, was substantially less after labor costs were considered (dollar 3.43 vs dollar 4.43, CDN). CONCLUSIONS: Varnish applications were found to take less time and resulted in fewer signs of discomfort. These results support the use of fluoride varnish in caries prevention programs, especially for younger children.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".