Children at Risk and Oral Health, The Dental Record Study

Child Abuse, Child Maltreatment, Child Neglect

Oral health, Dental health service, Childrens advocacy center, Prevention, Detection, Collaboration

The objectives of this retrospective dental record study, are to increase knowledge of the oral health, - history and -needs of children enrolled at the Childrens Advocacy Centers (CAC)by: * assessing if it is possible to identify oral indicators of child maltreatment. * assessing if and to what degree the children enrolled at CAC are in need of close, adapted and trauma sensitive treatment and follow up at the Public Dental Health Service (PDHS) * assessing if there is a need for new routines in terms of interdisciplinary collaboration and sharing of information between CAC, Child Welfare Services (CWS) and PDHP. By increasing knowledge in regard to child maltreatment and oral health, the study will raise PDHS and CAC ability to prevent, detect and help children being victims of maltreatment, and contribute to strengthen PDHS, CAC and CWS interdisciplinary interaction for the benefit of children at risk.

The combination of the CAC and the organization of the PDHS in Norway with regular summoning of all children up to 18 years, provides a unique opportunity to identify children at risk and study their oral health and history in a retrospective perspective. Retrospective dental record data will be collected from the public dental health records of children, aged 0-18 when enrolled at CAC, and a control group matched by gender and age. In addition to increase knowledge of the oral health, and - history, the dental record data will also provide information regarding the PDHS 's ability to detect, follow up and interact with children at risk and to which degree interdisciplinary cooperation between the CAC, the child welfare service and the PDHS takes place and are functioning. By using already existing data from the childrens dental records at the public dental health service the study will gain new and important knowledge, without adding further burden to the children and families. The Ethical committee REK Vest, has approved the study and permitted that the study will be conducted without an informed consent from the parents and children being enrolled. In order to secure that the research project is in line with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), identify, evaluate and negating the risks of the personal data being collected, A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) has been conducted.

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Norway