ArticleBritish dental journal2022
The perceptions and attitudes of qualified dental therapists towards a diagnostic role in the provision of paediatric dental care.
Article in British dental journal, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives This study explored the perceptions and attitudes of qualified UK dental therapists (DTs) to act in a diagnostic role in the dental care of paediatric patients.Methods A mixed methods study. An electronic questionnaire was sent out to the members of associations and closed social networking groups for qualified DTs across the UK. The questionnaire explored the training, clinical experience and working practices of the participants and measured their agreements with applicable statements using Likert scale scores. Semi-structured interviews were also undertaken to explore how UK DTs perceived a diagnostic role for them and what barriers and facilitators they experienced.Results A total of 155 questionnaire responses were returned and 11 interviews conducted. Participants were mostly women (94.8%) with a broad range of working experience, with a mean experience of 9.5 years (± 8.8 standard deviation [SD]) (range: 1-42 years). From the questionnaires, when asked to score agreement on a Likert scale from 0-5, DTs agreed that in a diagnostic role, they could increase access to dentistry for patients and a high proportion were in agreement that they had the knowledge to carry out examination (mean = 4.43 ± 0.87 SD), diagnosis (mean = 4.37 ± 0.90 SD) and care planning for paediatric patients (mean = 2.74 ± 1.32 SD). The interviews yielded three qualitative supra themes: 'working in the UK as a DT today'; 'the perceptions of dental therapists on acting in a diagnostic role in paediatric dental care'; and 'barriers and facilitators to acting in a diagnostic role' and within these, eight major themes were identified.Conclusion Within the limitations of a small sample who were representative of the workforce demographic and educational structures, we found that DTs felt that if they were to act in a diagnostic role, it would improve access to dental services benefitting patients, dentists and the DT profession. DTs identified and explored barriers and facilitators to a diagnostic role. Change is required to overcome these barriers in order to support DTs to act in a front-line diagnostic role.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.