Abstract
The aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between self-reported preventive and curative orientations of general dental practitioners (GDPs) and the oral healthcare services (OHS) they provided to patients under 18-years-old. And in addition, to determine which patient, GDP, and dental practice characteristics predicted the provision of preventive and curative care. GDPs in the Netherlands using dental software program Exquise (>2,000) were invited to participate in this study voluntarily. Participants completed a web-based questionnaire on characteristics of themselves, their dental practices, and on 20 hypothetical clinical situations concerning caries management. Based on their responses GDPS were classified for their preventive orientation, and their curative orientation. Data on the OHS provided to their young patients over the period 2013-2017 were automatically extracted from the patient files. Based on the annual frequency of provided care to regular patients over a period of 4 or 5 years, this was converted into 3 longitudinal care patterns regarding prevention and 3 longitudinal care patterns regarding curative care. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted with a multilevel approach to correct for dental practices. The 37 participating GDPs provided data for 16,229 young patients. There was not a significant relationship between self-reported preventive orientations and preventive care patterns. The self-reported middle curative orientation was a predictor of the care pattern 'curative treatment(s) in 1 year' (OR 1.23 compared to nu curative treatments; 95% CI 1.02-1.48). The self-reported high curative orientation was a predictor of 'curative treatments in several years' (OR 1.90; 95% CI 1.27-2.85). Common characteristics predicting (p<0.05) both regular preventive care and curative treatments in several years were patient related: age 4-9 and 10-12, low-income neighborhood, 5 years included in study. GDP and dental practice related predictors were: the GDP could fulfill the care demand by working overtime, small dental practice (≤2,000 patients), and practice policy on the provision of care to young patients. This showed that the variation in provided care was partly supplier-driven instead of patient-centered.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0306403 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-25 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | PLoS ONE |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| Early online date | 5 Jul 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:Copyright: © 2024 Hummel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding
Software supplier Vertimart supported this study in kind by building the application for data collection in their dental software program Exquise and sending the invitation for participation to their customers. All costs for the data collection in this study have been funded by the Royal Dutch Dental Association (KNMT). The funders had no substantive involvement whatsoever in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors would like to thank the participating GDPs for completing the questionnaire and delivering their data. We acknowledge the department of pediatric dentistry from ACTA for the photographs of the caries lesions in the primary dentition, and the dentists who tested the questionnaire. We thank software supplier Vertimart for building the application for participation into their dental software program Exquise, and for inviting the users of Exquise to participate in this study on our behalf. We would like to express our gratitude to the KNMT for their efforts to bring the study under attention of GDPs and for enabling the data collection. Eventually, we would like to thank KBA for the data collection and calling the registered GDPs.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Royal Dutch Dental Association | |
| KNMT | |
| ACTA | |
| GDPs |