Behavioral Interventions on Periodontitis Patients to Improve Oral Hygiene: A Systematic Review

This systematic review aimed to investigate the impact of different psychological models, strategies, and methods to improve plaque control and/or gingival inflammation in patients with periodontal diseases. Methods: The PubMed/MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and Embase online databases were explored to identify relevant studies published before October 2022. Articles investigating the effects of different psychological approaches and intervention strategies on periodontitis patients’ oral hygiene (OH) behavioral change were screened. Results: 5460 articles were identified, and 21 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. In total, 2 studies tested audio-visual modalities, and the remaining 19 publications involved six psychological models of health-related behavioral interventions, including Social Cognitive Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Health Action Process Approach, Leventhal’s self-regulatory theory, Motivational Interviewing, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. A meta-analysis of the results was not carried out due to the high heterogeneity among the interventions. Conclusions: Considering the limitations of the available studies, psychological interventions based on social cognitive models that combine some of the techniques of this model (goal setting, planning, self-monitoring, and feedback) may improve OH in periodontitis patients, having a positive impact on periodontal clinical outcomes. Delivering cognitive behavioral therapy in combination with motivational interviewing may result in an improvement in OH as evaluated by decreasing plaque and bleeding scores.