Table 3.

Key lessons learnt from needs assessment

Key lessons learnt about barriers/facilitators and intervention content and delivery

• Need to educate parents as lack of parent-targeted oral health programmes currently. • Education on oral health needs to begin early in a child life. • Family background, including parents own oral health, and the influence of the extended family and culture can have an impact on oral health. • Need to emphasise the personal responsibility of parents to take care of child’s oral health. • Need to highlight dental caries preventable and show consequences of brushing vs. not brushing. • Oral health messages need to be consistent. • Intervention needs to be user-friendly, fun and interactive (e.g. peer support, use of videos, practical demonstrations, phone Apps and novelty toothbrushes). • Wider parenting skills (e.g., routine setting and behaviour management) highly important to toothbrushing behaviour. • Language barriers and cultural sensitivity are key considerations in the development of an intervention. • Signposting to existing services would be useful to parents. • Interventions should be delivered through existing community services (e.g. health visitors, children’s centres). • Parenting programmes are a potential means of addressing wider parenting skills and delivering an intervention with an existing community provision.