Caregiver’s Race/Ethnicity on Acceptance of Passive Immobilization for their Child’s Dental Treatment

Objective: To determine if caregiver race/ethnicity impacts their willingness to accept passive immobilization and to determine if a written and pictorial description of the technique will make the caregivers more likely to accept the technique. Methods: Caregivers of patients age 1-16 were recruited in the Post Graduate Pediatric Dentistry Clinic at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry. If caregivers opted to participate, they completed a questionnaire, reviewed a pictorial and written description of the technique, and then completed another questionnaire. The data was analyzed in SPSS using Kruskal Wallis ANOVA and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks with a p-value of 0.05. Results: A total of 284 subjects, who met the inclusion criteria, were entered and consented for this study. Eighteen were excluded from data analysis. Therefore, the sample size of 266 caregivers were used for statistical analysis. Hypothesis 1: The null hypothesis that there is no difference in the caregiver's willingness to accept passive immobilization based upon race was rejected using Kruskal Wallis ANOVA at p=0.05. Based upon initial attitudes, subjects consented to passive immobilization at the following percentages: Hispanic (84%), African American (66%), Asian (50%) and Caucasian (24%). Hypothesis 2: The null hypothesis that there is no difference in willingness to accept passive immobilization after reviewing written and pictorial description was rejected using Wilcoxon Signed Ranks at p=0.05. Conclusions: We conclude that caregiver race/ethnicity does impact their willingness to accept passive immobilization in our patient population. We also conclude that caregivers are more likely to accept the use of passive immobilization after they are given more information about the technique.