NUTRITION TO PREVENT AND MANAGE DENTAL CARIES: UNDERSTANDING THE PERCEIVED KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, AND PRACTICES OF DIETITIANS IN CANADA
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Dental caries is the most prevalent chronic disease worldwide and represents an important public health challenge. There is a strong relationship between nutrition and dental caries, as food choices and eating behaviours influence the risk of developing dental caries. Likewise, dental caries can affect dietary patterns, eating behaviours and nutritional status. Dietitians, oral health professionals (OHP), and other health professionals have an important role in helping with the prevention and management of dental caries, in order to reduce the burden of this disease. Collaboration between dietitians and OHP is also encouraged and recommended in education, research and practice to prevent and manage dental caries. Objective: To describe the perceived knowledge, attitudes, and practices of dietitians regarding nutrition to prevent and manage dental caries in Canada. Methods: A survey was developed with a variety of question types (e.g., multiple choice, open-ended) to address the study objective. An interdisciplinary advisory committee composed of health professionals, patient partners, and the research team, guided the study. The survey development consisted of several steps, including: 1-literature review and survey draft; 2-expert review with the advisory committee and other professionals; 3- cognitive interviews with three dietitians; the survey was revised after each of these steps. The survey was available in English and French and was mounted on SurveyMonkey. The survey was advertised to dietitians across Canada from June-August 2021 using social media, e-mail lists, and word of mouth. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSSv28, and qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. Results: In total, n=235 responses were included. Most respondents reported living in British Columbia (n=75; 36.6%), Saskatchewan (n=59; 28.8%) and Ontario (n=31; 15.1%). Overall, since 2015, n=168 (84.0%) respondents reported to have worked in nutrition care, and n=59 (29.5%) respondents reported to have worked in public health/health promotion. In total, n=198 (84.2%) respondents agreed or strongly agreed that there is a strong relationship between nutrition and dental caries. One-on-one nutrition counselling was the most common practice conducted by dietitians regarding nutrition and dental caries; in total, n=144 (64.3%) of respondents reported conducting this activity frequently or occasionally since 2015. The most common message provided by dietitians in their practice about nutrition and dental caries was to limit the amount of consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, being reported by n=141 (65.3%) respondents. In total, n=128 (58.7%) of respondents reported experiencing barriers in their practice related to nutrition and dental caries, and not having enough knowledge about the topic was the most mentioned barrier (n=66, 51.2%). In addition, n=177 (85.5%) respondents reported to have never received any training on the topic of nutrition and dental caries; however, n=209 (91.7%) of respondents reported interest in attending a structured session on the topic. Collaboration practices between dietitians and OHP were reported to be conducted in a limited capacity. In total, only n=25 (11.5%) of respondents reported to have been consulted or have received a patient/client referral from another health professional regarding nutrition and dental caries. In addition, only n=67 (30.6%) of respondents reported consulting with an OHP about nutrition and dental caries. Conclusion: Dietitian respondents demonstrated substantial enthusiasm about the importance of nutrition and dental caries; however, the results of this thesis showed that practices concerning nutrition and dental caries are limited, and that they experience barriers working in this area. Although most respondents reported to have never received training on nutrition and dental caries, they reported high interest in attending a structured educational session in the future about the topic. The results of this study show the need for increased educational programs that will help to enhance the confidence and comfort level of dietitians about different topics around nutrition and dental caries to ultimately help to decrease the burden of dental caries in Canada and beyond.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 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".