DT News - UK - Dental care professionals suitable for performing oral screenings

Dental Tribune International

Mon. 16 February 2015

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MANCHESTER, UK: British researchers have found that oral hygiene therapists can perform screening for common dental diseases as well as general dentists. The finding has important ramifications for service design in public-funded health systems. The study compared the diagnostic test accuracy of hygiene therapists in screening for dental caries and periodontal disease in regularly attending asymptomatic adults.

The researchers at the School of Dentistry at the University of Manchester examined the potential and effectiveness of delegating tasks performed by a general dental practitioner (GDP) to dental care professionals, including therapists, hygiene therapists, hygienists and extended-duty dental nurses.

Regularly attending adult patients in the UK are increasingly asymptomatic and often do not require treatment at their routine dental examinations. Thus, using GDPs to undertake the check-ups on regular low-risk patients represents a potentially unnecessary cost for state-funded systems.

Given recent regulatory changes in the UK, it is now theoretically possible to delegate a range of tasks to dental care professionals. According to the researchers, role substitution in primary dental care may be a promising option for reducing costs, releasing the GDP’s time and increasing the capacity to care for those who do not currently access services. Throughout the UK, only about 50 per cent of the population attend the dentist. The other half is generally socio-economically disadvantaged and experiences the majority of dental diseases.

Ten dental practices across North West England took part in the study and 1,899 asymptomatic adult patients were screened. Visual screening by hygiene therapists was taken as the index test and the GDP acted as the reference standard. The primary outcomes measured were the sensitivity and specificity values for dental caries and periodontal disease.

The results of the study showed that the hygiene therapists performed comparably to the GDPs. Richard Macey, lead author of the study and research assistant at the dental school, told medicalnewstoday.com: “In particular, hygiene therapists were good at identifying those patients the GDP had confirmed were caries free and at identifying periodontal disease where the dentists confirmed its presence.”

Fiona Sandom, President of the British Association of Dental Therapists, welcomed the findings of the study: “Our association find the results of this study encouraging and we view it as further evidence to support delegation within the dental team. The research confirms that dental hygienists and therapists have key parts to play in the future delivery of dental care within the UK.”

The study, titled “The efficacy of screening for common dental diseases by hygiene-therapists: A diagnostic test accuracy study”, was published online on 20 January in the Journal of Dental Research.

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