METHOD: An interdisciplinary collaborative approach was taken to ensure the methodology for an oral health birth cohort study was ‘gold standard' in terms of recruitment and data collection. We sampled mothers, infants and toddlers to represent the age groups that would be included in successive waves of the proposed birth cohort (1, 6, 12, 18 months). Measures captured biological, behavioural and socio-environmental determinants of caries and child health and wellbeing, including dental examinations and saliva from mother and child; and mothers completed a study-experience interview.
RESULTS: A total of 29 mother and child pairs participated. Recruitment strategies required letters from community nurses, word-of-mouth and phone calls to researchers. Data collection was conducted in homes or community centres. Concerns were expressed regarding travel burden for new mothers, and reports of social isolation. The average travel distance to homes was 80km. No further improvements were required for validity of comprehension of standardised questionnaire items or dental examinations for either mother or child. However only 17% of preferred 1ml of saliva was obtained from infants. All mothers stated that they would be pleased to participate in 6-month waves of a longitudinal study, with 55% preferring home visits. A trade-off is required between travel time and costs versus participation rates.
CONCLUSION: Participants viewed oral health as an important part of their child's overall health and were happy to be involved in a longitudinal study. Endorsement of the study by the community nurses was important for the local community. However despite rigorous planning to ensure ‘gold standard' methodology, this study demonstrated that pilot projects within the actual context and setting are essential to identify enabling strategies for improved quality, rigour and validity.