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The willingness of US pediatric dentists to use atraumatic restorative treatment ( ART ) with their patients: a conjoint analysis
Author(s) -
Kateeb Elham Talib,
Warren John,
Gaeth Gary,
Damiano Peter,
Momany Elizabeth,
Kanellis Michael J.,
WeberGasparoni Karin,
Ansley Timothy
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of public health dentistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1752-7325
pISSN - 0022-4006
DOI - 10.1111/jphd.12052
Subject(s) - conjoint analysis , medicine , public health insurance , dental insurance , family medicine , health insurance , marketing , dentistry , actuarial science , environmental health , health care , oral health , business , preference , economics , microeconomics , economic growth
Abstract Objectives The atraumatic restorative treatment ( ART ) was developed as an affordable, patient‐friendly dental caries management procedure that does not need extensive operator training or special skills. The aim of this study was to determine factors that influence the decision to use ART using an innovative marketing research technique known as conjoint analysis. Methods A conjoint survey was completed by 723 members of the A merican A cademy of P ediatric D entistry. Three factors (age of the child, level of cooperation, type of insurance) were varied across three levels to create nine patient scenarios. The weights that practitioners placed on these factors in decisions to use ART in treating carious lesions were determined by conjoint analysis. Factors such as lesion location, depth, and extension were fixed in the nine clinical scenarios. Results Seven‐hundred twenty‐three pediatric dentists completed the survey (32 percent). Age of the child was the most important factor in pediatric dentists' decisions to use ART (46 percent) compared with level of cooperation (41 percent) and type of insurance coverage (11 percent). For the age factor, the age of 2 years had the greatest utility (0.55) compared with age 4 (−0.09) and age 6 (−0.46). For types of insurance coverage, having no insurance (0.124) had the greatest utility compared with having public insurance (−0.119). Conclusions Although insurance coverage was the least important among the factors, being without insurance, being very young, and being uncooperative was the scenario where pediatric dentists most favored ART when making trade offs between different factors using the conjoint design.