Effectiveness and Cost-effectiveness of Preventive Dentistry

Abstract

Health promotion and prevention plays an important role in healthcare as much as treatment. To promote preventive dentistry, scarce resource should be allocated to maximize benefit. In addition, evidence-based decision making should be encouraged. This study examined information regarding effectiveness and cost-effectiveness on preventive dentistry. The review focused on the local evidence in Thailand. If the local data was not available, systematic searches of evidence from international databases were conducted. The primary criterion for selection of studies was that they reported the effectiveness in terms of the behavior changes or health indicators. The studies reported the outcome in terms of improvement in attitude, knowledge or service utilization were deliberately excluded. It was found that most preventive dentistry (22 out of 25 measures) gave benefits to oral health. However, there were limited data regarding social policy and cost-effectiveness.