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Objectives: To evaluate family medicine residency curricula content pertaining to, and residents’ training in, infants’ oral health in Canada. Methods: Two brief self-administered online surveys were developed using Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap). One survey targeted all the 17 Canadian family medicine training program directors, and another target the currently enrolled residents within these programs. Questions focused on training, attitudes and practices towards infant oral health. Statistical tests were performed using SPSS version 22 with a confidence interval of 95% and a significance level of 0.05. Results: A total of 11 family medicine directors and 155 family medicine residents responded to the survey. The vast majority 90% (N=10) of the directors indicated that clinical oral health screening was not incorporated into the curriculum, particularly around early childhood caries. Over half the residents (53%, n=82) reported that they did not feel their training was adequate to identify dental caries in children. As 41% (n=63) of the residents described the quality of their training in oral health-related topics during their residency to be poor, more than two thirds (62%, n=96) of them seldom performed a visual examination of the children’s teeth. Although family medicine residents felt that physicians have an important role in promoting oral health among infants and toddlers, the majority (72%, n=112) of them reported lack of knowledge and training as the main barriers to performing oral health-related practices. Conclusion: Most of the Family Physicians training programs in Canada do not include infant oral health screening in their curriculum. While the majority of family medicine residents felt that physicians have an important role in promoting oral health amongst children, the reported lack of knowledge and training were hindering them from performing various oral health-related practices. |
