What is it about?
Mentoring opportunities were established for dentists and oral health therapists to see if this improved their willingness to treat patients with special health care needs. Working with specialists and specialist trainees in special needs dentistry improved the willingness and confidence of clinicians in managing these patients. Establishing such relationships to support clinicians may be a crucial part of reducing barriers experienced by people with disability and special health care needs in accessing regular dental care.
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Why is it important?
People with disabilities and special health care needs report finding dentists willing to treat them and who understand their needs and the biggest barrier to them receiving regular dental care. While improvement to education of oral health professionals will address future health professionals, it does little to improve the willingness of currently practising clinicians who have less training or experience in this area. Establishing different mentoring or support networks for clinicians, such as those discussed in this paper, are a cost-effective way to make an impactful change that has the potential to reduce one of the most significant barrier to access of dental care for these vulnerable populations in Australia and worldwide.
Perspectives
The fact that people with disability and special health care needs continue to suffer significant unmet dental needs when decay and periodontal/gum disease are almost entirely preventable is not just disappointing, but something that really is not acceptable. I hope that this research is a small part of the solution to addressing this problem.
Mathew Lim
Melbourne Dental School, University of Melbourne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Mentoring of oral health professionals is crucial to improving access to care for people with special needs, PLoS ONE, April 2022, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266879.
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