Dentists' perceptions of practicing patient-centred care: a qualitative exploration guided by the theoretical domains framework.

backgroundThere has been a growing interest in adopting patient-centred care into dental practice. However, there lacks a consensus of what patient-centred care looks like within the dental context and dentists report several barriers to practicing it. This study explored dentists’ understanding of patient-centred care and is the first to use the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to identify dentists’ perceived barriers and facilitators to practicing patient-centred care in private dental practice.

methodsSemi-structured interviews (n = 9) were conducted with dentists who completed ≥ 50% of their practice as a private dentist in the UK. Data were initially analysed using inductive thematic analysis to generate subthemes which were then deductively mapped to TDF domains.

resultsThirteen subthemes corresponded to eight TDF domains; ‘knowledge’, ‘skills’, ‘beliefs about capabilities’, ‘optimism’, ‘beliefs about consequences’, ‘memory, attention and decision processes’, ‘environmental context and resources’, and ‘emotion’. One additional subtheme (‘Conceptualisation of patient-centred care’) did not map onto any domain and reflected dentists’ perceptions about the components of patient-centred care.

conclusionsFindings revealed that whilst dentists’ understanding of patient-centred care aligns to academic definitions of patient-centred care, there remains a lack of consensus about patients’ responsibility for decision-making within a patient-centred approach. Furthermore, novel use of the TDF has identified several barriers and facilitators to patient-centred care which could be addressed to support the provision of patient-centred care in dental practice. Indeed, dentists may benefit from training in patient-centred care and future research should explore how establishing a patient-centred dental practice can facilitate patient-centred care.