Increasing Patient Engagement:
Efficacy of Educational Interventions

Ann Eshenaur Spolarich RDH, PhD, FSCDH, Professor and Assistant Dean for Research, Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health, A.T. Still University

Compliance with oral self-care is poor despite our best efforts in helping patients to understand their oral health care needs.

The purpose of this program is to explore techniques used to increase patient engagement during oral health education in the practice setting and to review the efficacy of various training and motivational techniques on patient oral health behaviors. Current scientific findings about how psychosocial interventions impact clinical outcomes will be shared and discussed. Clinicians will learn about available tools that can be used to help patients become active participants in managing their oral health.

Participants will learn:

• That knowledge is never enough to change an individual’s behavior.
• That oral health educational interventions should be grounded in behavioral change theory to be successful.
• That clinicians have many tools available to support patient engagement to improve compliance with oral self-care regimens.
• etc.