Dental Transition Planning Essay

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INTRODUCTION Transitional planning is defined as “purposeful, planned preparation of patients, families, and caregivers for transfer of a patient from a pediatric to adult care program 1, 2 Adolescence is a transitional period between childhood and adulthood. It is estimated that in the United States 12-18 % of adolescents (12-17 years) have a special health care need. They are at increased risk for chronic, physical, developmental, behavioral, and emotional challenges that require long term care including dental care beyond adolescence 3-6. Almost 90% of children with special health care needs have higher life expectancy and can survive into adulthood since the survival rate of this population is increasing 7. As young people mature and …show more content…

In addition, the annual income of household was grouped into two groups; a- $34,999 and below, b- $35,000 and above. In the study, dental home was evaluated and determined according to AAPD guideline. Considering this guideline, when subjects had routine check-up, annual exam, teeth cleaning, fluoride treatment and x-ray, when necessary, altogether in the past 12 months, then dental home was considered present-established. Dental transition is part of dental home policy according to AAPD guideline and subjects should have pediatric dentist to evaluate the establishment of dental transition. Therefore, type of dental provider for the subjects was considered as having pediatric dentist as part of dental transition. Since some of the subjects had general dentist/ family dentist, we excluded those subjects to evaluate the dental transition. We considered those who had general dentist/family dentist at the time of the survey would stay with the same dentist and there would be no dental transition established. According to literature, age for transition is before age of 18. Therefore, we considered subjects with age of 18 and younger to assess dental

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