CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 33Dental Health and Care UtilizationGeriatric Care and Nursing HomesAging, Elder Care, and Social Issues

‘Not on the radar’: dentists' perspectives on the oral health care of dependent older people

Smith, Moira B., Thomson, William Murray·2017·Gerodontology
DOI 10.1111/ger.12227
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Objectives: We explored the following research questions: (i) what challenges do dentists face when providing oral health care to dependent older adults; and (ii) to overcome those challenges, what recommendations would dentists providing care give those planning and implementing oral health policy and services for dependent older adults? Background: The dentate older population is steadily increasing, and about half will end up in residential care, where dental caries rates over time are at least twice as great as those observed elsewhere. Materials and methods: A qualitative study was used, with semi‐structured interviews conducted by a single interviewer. Dental examiners in a recent national survey of oral health in dependent older people in New Zealand were interviewed about their experiences and perspectives of that. Results: The challenges participants identified stemmed from three areas – the patient, the care facility and the oral health sector. To address those challenges, the participants recommended actions at the patient, system and sector levels. Each of the challenges and recommendations had a number of subthemes. Overall, the dentists felt that it is a very complex situation urgently requiring policy development, cross‐sectoral collaboration and upskilling of the dental profession, carers, the private sector and the State to ensure a care environment which supports achieving and maintaining oral health among frail elders. Conclusions: Urgent attention to frail older New Zealanders’ oral health is needed. Such attention needs to focus on not only the narrow dental clinical preventive and therapeutic implications of those needs, but also on the broader health system and policy development challenges.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/ger.12227

Cites

25 of 25 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Recruitment and retention of dental and non-dental staff were considered challenging, mostly due to limited number of professionals interested in working in primary integrated clinics and shortage of dentists in rural and remote regions.

    “Moreover, recruitment and retention of dental and non-dental staff were considered challenging, mostly due to the limited number of professionals interested in working in primary integrated clinics and shortage of dentists in rural and remote regions.”

    From Barriers and facilitators in the integration of oral health into primary care: a scoping review (2017) · cites this paper as [48]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Smith, M. B., & Thomson, W. M.
Affiliations
University of Otago (NZ)
Corresponding author
Thomson, William Murray
ORCID
Venue
Gerodontology
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2016-05-16
Volume
34
Issue
1
Pages
90-100
ISSN
  • 0734-0664 (ISSN-L)
  • 1741-2358
DOI
10.1111/ger.12227
OpenAlex
W2396681692
Cited by
33
References
25
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2
FWCI
3.48
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
  • Gerodontology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Ministry of Health
  • University of Otago
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Dentistry › Periodontics › Dental Health and Care Utilization
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues
Keywords
oral care, dependent elderly, frail elderly, residential care, dentists' perspectives, dental caries, oral health policy, intersectoral collaboration, care environment, New Zealand
MeSH terms
Aged, Attitude of Health Personnel, Dentists, Health Policy, Humans, Interviews as Topic, New Zealand, Residential Facilities, Dental Care for Aged, Qualitative Research

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review