'You just don't have the time to keep bringing them back, bringing them back': the experience of primary care dental professionals in England when treating young children with carious teeth

Abstract

Introduction

Caries in the primary dentition affects around one-quarter of children in England. There is uncertainty and varying practice regarding the management of these children within NHS primary dental care. Silver diamine fluoride (SDF) is an approach that is not well-adopted nationally. This study aims to explore the factors affecting treatment choices for caries management in young children within primary dental care, including the use of SDF.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews were carried out via video conferencing with general dental practitioners and therapists working in NHS primary care. The topic guide covered factors which influence the management of caries in primary teeth, with SDF-specific questions. These were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis.

Results

A total of 13 interviews were conducted with dental professionals working across Yorkshire and the East Midlands. Decision-making for caries management was dependent on inter-related factors, which also influenced SDF use. Treatment decisions were taken on a case-by-case basis, but were influenced by the child, their parents, the dental professional and service factors, along with the clinical technique.

Conclusion

Many individual- and system-level factors influence treatment decisions for early childhood caries. However, issues relating to remuneration and governance appear to be specific barriers to adoption of SDF in primary dental care.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Timms, L. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2738-3406
Rodd, H. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2973-2558
Deery, C. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7526-7736
Brocklehurst, P.
Marshman, Z. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0943-9637

© 2023 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.

Keywords:

Biomedical and Clinical Sciences; Dentistry; Pediatric Research Initiative; Health Services; Pediatric; Infectious Diseases; Clinical Research; Dental/Oral and Craniofacial Disease; Individual care needs; Management of diseases and conditions; Organisation and delivery of services; Health and social care services research; Oral and gastrointestinal

Dates: