CClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT03881891AHRQPROUpdated Aug 4, 2022

Optimizing Acute Post-Operative Dental Pain Management Using New Health Information Technology

An interventional study of Follow-app intervention arm in Pain, Postoperative and Complication, Postoperative, sponsored by University of California, San Francisco. Completed at 2 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2022-08-04.

Sponsored by University of California, San Francisco · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
1,525
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The investigators seek to implement a dental patient reported outcomes system using mobile phone and text messaging to target the over-reliance on pre-emptively prescribed opioids by dental providers. If successful, this project will help dentists actively track and manage their patients' pain after hours and enhance the overall care experience.

Read the detailed description

Pain has been deemed the fifth vital sign and many describe it as an adverse event. The adequate management of pain is the bane of the dental profession and its continuous assessment is crucial to minimizing patients' pain experiences. Due to the duration of action of most commonly-used local anesthetic agents, dental patients are unable to predict their pain following dental procedures until many hours later, when the participants have already returned home and dental offices are closed. This has led to an over-reliance on pre-emptively prescribed opioids by dental providers because the participants have no means to actively track their patients' pain after hours. Innovative mobile applications and connected health technologies that allow real-time tracking of patients' symptoms, functional status and quality of life, provide healthcare professionals with data that were previously unavailable, and have fostered patient engagement, shared decision-making and adherence to treatment plans. The investigators propose an innovative solution to optimize the quality of dental pain monitoring and management by implementing mobile phone technology to monitor patients' pain during the critical acute post-operative phase. The hypothesis is that by actively tracking these symptoms using mobile phones, the investigators modify analgesic prescriptions), thereby eliminating needless suffering, reducing the occurrence and/or severity of post-op complications, and enhancing the overall care experience. The investigators' ultimate goal is to achieve the quadruple aim: improve patient experience, improve patient outcomes, improve physician experience and reduce per capita costs. The investigators will test this hypothesis using a cluster-randomized experimental study design with: (1) an intervention arm where patients receive push notifications through text messages on their mobile phones (FollowApp.Care) at designated time intervals on Days 1, 3, 5 and 7; and (2) a control arm where patients receive the usual care. This project will be conducted at two dental institutions: Willamette Dental Group (WDG) and University of California San Francisco (UCSF). In Aim 1 the investigators will customize the design features of the existing FollowApp.Care at two dental institutions (Willamette Dental Group and University of California San Francisco) and assess its capacity to accurately capture patient-reported outcomes. In Aim 2 the investigators evaluate the impact of using FollowApp.Care on patient post-op experiences and oral health outcomes. And in Aim 3, the investigators evaluate provider acceptance of FollowApp.Care and its impact on provider performance. By collecting patient reported outcomes in a timely and usable way, the investigators expect to help dentists enhance their practice performance and reduce the burden of unnecessary opioid prescriptions on society.

02

Conditions studied

  • Pain, Postoperative
  • Complication, Postoperative
03

In context

Pain, Postoperative

5,093 studies on the registry are indexed under Pain, Postoperative; 1,137 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 1,525 is above the median of 75 across 4,341 interventional studies indexed under Pain, Postoperative.

Browse Pain, Postoperative studies →

Lead sponsor

University of California, San Francisco is the lead sponsor of 2,132 studies on the registry; 375 are open to participants now.

Of its 262 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 196 (75%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Inclusion criteria

  • Patients who have undergone periodontal procedures.
  • Patients who have undergone endodontic procedures.
  • Patients who have undergone oral surgery procedures.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • 3rd year pre-doctoral students
  • 4th year pre-doctoral students
  • dental hygiene students
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Other
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
1,525 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Follow-app intervention arm

    This arm will comprise of patients who are prompted to complete the PROMIS pain intensity scale through text/Short Message Service(SMS) or email mobile device notifications at pre-defined time intervals on Days 1, 3, 5 and 7 post-operatively.

    Behavioral: Follow-app intervention arm

  • No intervention
    Standard care arm

    This arm will comprise of patients who receive the usual care.

Interventions

  • BehavioralFollow-app intervention arm

    The intervention includes implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of a mobile phone-based text messaging system (FollowApp.Care) to collect patients' assessments of their post-op symptoms (pain intensity) and to use that data to improve their quality of care (pain experience) in the dental office setting

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Pain intensity in the intervention arm, measured using the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Item Bank v.1.0 survey instrument

    Evaluate the pain intensity on Day 1 following completion of the specified dental procedures. Raw scores for the pain intensity construct are determined by summing each of the individual scores from the three questions for each participant. The raw scores are then standardized using a T-score, which ranges from 0 to 100 with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10. Scores closer to 100 indicate high pain intensities and scores closer to 0 indicate lower pain intensities.

    Time frame: On day 1 post procedure for each patient.

  2. Pain intensity in the intervention arm, measured using the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Item Bank v.1.0 survey instrument

    Evaluate the pain intensity on Day 3 following completion of the specified dental procedures. Raw scores for the pain intensity construct are determined by summing each of the individual scores from the three questions for each participant. The raw scores are then standardized using a T-score, which ranges from 0 to 100 with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10. Scores closer to 100 indicate high pain intensities and scores closer to 0 indicate lower pain intensities.

    Time frame: On day 3 post procedure for each patient.

  3. Pain intensity in the intervention arm, measured using the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Item Bank v.1.0 survey instrument

    Evaluate the pain intensity on Day 5 following completion of the specified dental procedures. Raw scores for the pain intensity construct are determined by summing each of the individual scores from the three questions for each participant. The raw scores are then standardized using a T-score, which ranges from 0 to 100 with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10. Scores closer to 100 indicate high pain intensities and scores closer to 0 indicate lower pain intensities.

    Time frame: On day 5 post procedure for each patient.

  4. Pain intensity in the intervention arm, measured using the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Item Bank v.1.0 survey instrument

    Evaluate the pain intensity on Day 7 following completion of the specified dental procedures. Raw scores for the pain intensity construct are determined by summing each of the individual scores from the three questions for each participant. The raw scores are then standardized using a T-score, which ranges from 0 to 100 with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10. Scores closer to 100 indicate high pain intensities and scores closer to 0 indicate lower pain intensities.

    Time frame: On day 7 post procedure for each patient.

  5. Pain experience in both arms, measured using the American Pain Society, the Patient Outcome Questionnaire (APS-POQ-R) questionnaire.

    Assess patients' 7-day post-op pain experiences. The dependent variables for our analysis will be derived from the questions: "How often were you in severe pain in the first 7 days?" A score of zero signifies that the respondent was "never in severe pain" while a score of 100 means the patient was "always in severe pain"; and 2b) "How satisfied you are with the results of your pain treatment following your dental procedure?" The patient satisfaction outcome scale ranges from 0 to 10 with low scores representing low satisfaction and higher scores representing higher satisfaction.

    Time frame: The pain experience outcome will be measured 7 days post procedure.

  6. Provider Acceptance of FollowApp.Care

    The investigators will administer the 26-item Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2) Questionnaire to providers in the intervention group pre- and post-implementation, to assess their perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of FollowApp.Care as predictors of their usage behavior. The control group will also be invited to complete the TAM2 questionnaire post-implementation only, to assess their acceptance of FollowApp.Care if it is made available to them.

    Time frame: 2nd Quarter Year 3

Secondary outcomes

  1. Unscheduled/emergency visits during the study period;

    This measure will be compiled on a monthly basis through chart review. At the patient level, the distribution of emergency/unscheduled follow-up visits (frequency and mean) will be collected.

    Time frame: through study completion, an average of 3 years

07

Study locations

2 sites
  • University of California San Francisco
    San Francisco, California 94143, United States
  • Willamette Dental Group & Skourtes Institute
    Hillsboro, Oregon 97124, United States
08

References and documents

Study documents

  • Informed consent form · Dec 27, 2019
  • Informed consent form · Dec 27, 2019
  • Informed consent form · Dec 27, 2019
  • Informed consent form · Dec 27, 2019

Documents are hosted by the registry — open the source record to download them.

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Aug 4, 2022, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03881891
Lead sponsor
University of California, San Francisco
Collaborators
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Mar 20, 2019
Start date
Feb 3, 2020
Primary completion
Dec 31, 2021
Completion
Jun 30, 2022
Last update
Aug 4, 2022

Study contacts

Elsbeth Kalenderian, DDS, PhD
principal investigator · University of California, San Francisco
Muhammad F Walji, PhD
principal investigator · UT Houston

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Aug 2022. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

Follow this study

Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.

Sign in to follow

Discussion

Questions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.

Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.

Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.

Start the discussion