title: The role for 'reminders' in dental traumatology: 2. The effectiveness of a reminder stamp compared with the current clinical practice for documenting the diagnostic working length.
abstract: The aim of this study was to establish if a predesigned prompt in the form of a reminder stamp placed in a patient's dental records is more effective for recording the essential details of a diagnostic working length compared to the current practice without any specific prompts. Following a pilot study of current practice, a stamp was introduced. Twelve months following the introduction of the stamp, 198 patient records were examined, where endodontic treatment had been carried out mainly for traumatic injuries. The following parameters were specifically investigated whether a radiograph had been taken to establish working length and was it available for examination, whether the working length was recorded in the notes and whether a reference point for the measurements was given. The working length was conventionally recorded by 127 notes, whereas 71 used the stamp. A working length radiograph was taken and a working length recorded for 95% of the cases where no stamp had been used, compared to 100% of the stamp group. Where no stamp had been used only 83% of working length radiographs were available compared to 100% of the stamp group. Interestingly, a reference point from where the working length had been measured was only recorded in 5% of the cases where the stamp had not been used compared to 94% using the predesigned stamp. This result was statistically significant using a chi-squared test (P < 0.001). The stamp was generally more effective than the conventional method of recording the working length for endodontics.
authors.affiliation: Division of Child Dental Health, Leeds Dental Institute, Leeds, UK. p.f.day@leeds.ac.uk
authors.forename: Peter F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Day
authors.forename: Monty S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Duggal
mesh_terms: D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records / Q000592:standards*; D011859:Radiography; D017010:Reminder Systems; D012390:Root Canal Therapy; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014092:Tooth Root / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging