The Effect of Motivational Interviewing on Reduction of New Carious Lesions in Children with Early Childhood Caries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Preventive therapies rely on effective behavior change. Motivational interviewing (MI), has been the most recent advancement in behavior therapies that have been successful in tobacco cessation. The effectiveness of MI needs to be evaluated in caries prevention. Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of MI on the reduction of new carious lesions in children with early childhood caries (ECC). Materials and methods: The two authors independently searched data from Cochrane Library, PubMed, Google Scholar, J gate, and Quintpub. Selection criteria—interventional studies written in the English language with MI as an intervention, a mean follow-up period of atleast 2 years, ECC with decayed, missing, and filled primary teeth/decayed, missing, and filled primary surfaces (dmft/dmfs) as the outcome measures, in the age group of 0–6 years. We excluded cross-sectional studies. Information regarding methods, participants, interventions, outcome measures, and results were extracted. A risk of bias assessment within and across studies was conducted. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria were applied to generate quality evidence. Results: Six studies with a total of 2,663 participants were included in the review, and meta-analysis was conducted on 4; 3 studies had a high risk of bias. A mean reduction of 2.16 (−5.06, 0.75) was observed with MI as an intervention. A sensitivity analysis revealed a mean reduction of 3.64 (−5.77, −1.51) in favor of MI. Conclusion: There is some evidence with moderate certainty that MI is beneficial in the reduction of new carious lesions in children with ECC.