EVALUATION OF A CONTINUING-EDUCATION INTERVENTION PERIODONTICS IN GENERAL-PRACTICE

Evidence exists that some dentists may be failing to perform adequate periodontal diagnostic and preventive care for their patients. Continu ing education (CE) is an avenue that is frequently employed as a strat egy to alter the style of practice. This paper presents an evaluation of a year-long continuing education intervention ''Periodontics in Gen eral Practice'', conducted among randomly selected private general den tal practices in Adelaide, South Australia. The CE intervention featur ed a 1-day seminar, bi-monthly newsletters, individualised 3-monthly c omparative feedback, and technical assistance. The study employed a lo ngitudinal quasiexperimental design, which allowed for evaluation of t he effectiveness of the intervention among practices employing hygieni sts (n=12) and not employing dental hygienists (n=12), taking into acc ount the covariates of baseline level of provision of periodontal serv ices, the practice's level of participation in the intervention and at tendance at other CE courses in periodontics over the year. A comparis on group of practice (n=12) did not participate in the intervention ov er the year. Patient: record audits, conducted al baseline and at 12 m onths, provided data for the evaluation of the effect of the intervent ion on the recording of periodontal diagnostic, preventive and treatme nt items. Practices participating in the intervention showed increases in the percentage of records containing at least one periodontal diag nostic notation, and those practices employing hygienists showed an in crease in the percentage of records with at least one preventive notat ion and one treatment item. Using ANCOVA to account for covariation, t he main effect of the study group was significant in explaining change s in the provision of preventive periodontal services. The results ind icate that an extended continuing education intervention can have sign ificant effect on the provision of periodontal services, and that the magnitude of the effect differs between practices employing and not em ploying hygienists.