Perceptions of diet diaries’ usage in pediatric dental practice

BACKGROUND: Diet diaries are a significant tool for dietary assessment and advice. There is paucity of studies assessing the usage of diet diaries by pediatric dentists during their patient management. Hence, this study was designed and conducted to explore the perceptions of the pediatric dentists regarding the possible difficulties and their solutions for the usage of diet diaries in their dental office. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A questionnaire was designed to understand the awareness of pediatric dentists regarding the utility of diet diaries while preparing the diet modifications for their patients. The factors related with adherence of pediatric patients to the diet diaries were understood by using qualitative research method. RESULTS: The information regarding the diet was collected verbally by 78% of pediatric dentists. Monetary constraint (43%), time (35%), poor compliance (12%), and lack of skills (10%) were the other reasons. The results of the qualitative study showed that adhering to diet diaries was a multi-contextual phenomenon. CONCLUSIONS: Utilization of diet diaries by pediatric dentists and adherence to the diet modifications by the patients are very poor. A supportive health-care system, motivation of parents as well as children, along with an efficient tool seem to be needed for achieving success in utilization of diet diaries.