{"id":1082,"date":"2019-12-09T15:17:02","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T15:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/?p=1082"},"modified":"2019-12-09T15:17:03","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T15:17:03","slug":"you-can-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/you-can-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"YOU CAN DO IT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Last year I\nwrote a column about a study I saw in an article from over a decade ago. It was\nabout the poor odds people have about making changes in their life actually\nhappen. The article was an outpouring of concern from healthcare experts and\ndoctors, all looking for a way to change the behavior of people who love their\nlifestyle so much that they were willing to literally die from it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Johns\nHopkins study, 9 of 10 heart surgery patients chose to return to their\nunhealthy lifestyle, rather than make the changes needed to live longer. Very\nfew were convinced by their doctors to make radical daily changes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on my\nown experiences trying to move individuals to change habits that are having negative\neffects on their oral health, I knew it was difficult, but was shocked by the\n90% statistic, especially relating to a do or die scenario. Two studies from\n2013 relating specifically to dentistry confirm that changing behavior is not\neasy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first study\nlooked at whether dental hygienists were as effective as they thought they were\nwith oral hygiene instructions. The role of the dental hygienist is to instill\nthe need, desire and ability for patients to achieve optimum oral health. The\npurpose of this study was to determine if patients correctly understood oral\nhygiene instructions provided by the hygienist and to see if the hygienists\nfelt they were giving patients individualized instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No big\nsurprise, the findings showed a disconnect between what the hygienists believed\nthey were conveying to their patients and what the patients actually hear. So,\npart of the problem with getting people to change starts with actually\nconfirming that the person understands the call to action and the implications.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second\nstudy was to determine if a simple follow-up contact with the patient would\nimpact behavioral change. In this study, patients had a routine dental hygiene\nappointment and were given specific oral hygiene recommendations based on their\nindividual needs. Contact was then made with patients one week after their\nappointment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The patients\nwere asked if they tried the specifically recommended products they had been\ninstructed to use, if they liked using them, and why or why not. Only 50\npercent of the patients replied to the call-out from their hygienist. Of those\nwho did respond, most said they tried the specifically recommended product, but\nonly 33 percent of them felt they would continue to use it. The conclusion of\nthe study was that follow-up contact alone is not an effective method to change\nbehavior and does not increase compliance with oral health recommendations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what does\nit take to get people to change their habits? I think it is safe to say that\nsome will and some won\u2019t, no matter the consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. St. Clair maintains\na private dental practice in Rowley and Newburyport dedicated to health-centered\nfamily dentistry. If there are certain topics you would like to see written about\nor questions you have please email them to him at jpstclair@stclairdmd.com<\/a>.\nYou can view all previously written columns at www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year I wrote a column about a study I saw in an article from over a decade ago. It was about the poor odds people have about making changes in their life actually happen. The article was an outpouring of concern from healthcare experts and doctors, all looking for a way to change the behavior of people who love their lifestyle so much that they were willing to literally die from it. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1087,"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/1087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jpeterstclairdentistry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}