Background: Oral hygiene is of paramount importance for the preservation of oral health, and for patients affected by\nperiodontal disease establishing an effective oral hygiene routine is the first step of therapy. Several clinical frameworks\nhave been developed to foster behavior change, such as motivational interviewing. However, two obstacles can be\nidentified. First, patients tend to forget the advice they were given during the consultation. Second, it is hard to\nmaintain motivation in the long term, thus leading to relapse. An innovative eHealth solution was designed with the\naim to tackle both obstacles and supplement the current clinical standard of care. The primary objective is to compare\nthe full mouth plaque scores of study groups (eHealth plus standard of care versus standard of care only) at 8 weeks of\nfollow up. The main secondary objective is to compare the full mouth bleeding score at 8 weeks of follow up.\nMethods/design: The â??GoPerioâ? study is a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial assessing the impact of a novel\neHealth concept for oral hygiene motivation (personalized video of oral hygiene routine available for the patient via a\ncloud server plus interactive text messages) in addition to the current standard of care (motivational interviewing plus\ntooth scaling and polishing). The minimum sample size required is 86 patients. Participants will be randomized (allocation\nratio 1:1): test group (eHealth plus standard of care) versus control group (standard of care only). The primary outcome is\noral hygiene as measured by the full mouth (six sites per tooth) plaque control record (PCR) index. The main secondary\noutcome is gingival inflammation as measured by the full mouth (six sites per tooth) bleeding on probing (BOP) index.\nBoth the primary and the main secondary outcomes are evaluated by blinded and calibrated examiners at 8 weeks of\nfollow up. The other secondary outcomes are patient satisfaction and patient behavior change and motivation.\nDiscussion: The study will investigate the value of an innovative eHealth approach to strengthen patient motivation for\noral hygiene. If proven effective, such an approach would supplement the current clinical standard of care, resulting in\nimproved clinical outcomes with negligible impact on productivity in a dental practice.
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