TY - JOUR

T1 - Patient assessment in general dental practice - risk assessment or clinical monitoring?

AU - Brocklehurst, P. R.

AU - Ashley, J. R.

AU - Tickle, M

PY - 2011/4/23

Y1 - 2011/4/23

N2 - Risk assessment in general dental practice is becoming increasingly common and has led to the development of care protocols, which aim to act as a framework for decision making to produce an optimum level of care. However, many models of risk have been informed by research undertaken in academia and are based upon summary statistics of populations. In practice, a significant proportion of patients attend on a non-symptomatic, continuous and regular basis, often over long periods of time. This provides general dental practitioners with a wealth of knowledge about their patients to inform clinical decision making on an individual basis. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the important differences between an academic assessment of risk and one that is relevant to practice, before introducing a simple tool to screen out patients who are considered to be 'low risk'. The relevance of this tool is discussed, along with its potential uses and limitations as a means to promote discussion during the development of the pilots for the new dental contract to be introduced by the coalition government.

AB - Risk assessment in general dental practice is becoming increasingly common and has led to the development of care protocols, which aim to act as a framework for decision making to produce an optimum level of care. However, many models of risk have been informed by research undertaken in academia and are based upon summary statistics of populations. In practice, a significant proportion of patients attend on a non-symptomatic, continuous and regular basis, often over long periods of time. This provides general dental practitioners with a wealth of knowledge about their patients to inform clinical decision making on an individual basis. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the important differences between an academic assessment of risk and one that is relevant to practice, before introducing a simple tool to screen out patients who are considered to be 'low risk'. The relevance of this tool is discussed, along with its potential uses and limitations as a means to promote discussion during the development of the pilots for the new dental contract to be introduced by the coalition government.

KW - Adult

KW - Child

KW - Continuity of Patient Care

KW - Decision Making

KW - Dental Care

KW - Dental Caries

KW - Dental Research

KW - Dentist-Patient Relations

KW - Evidence-Based Dentistry

KW - Forecasting

KW - General Practice, Dental

KW - Health Status

KW - Humans

KW - Mass Screening

KW - Needs Assessment

KW - Oral Health

KW - Patient Care Planning

KW - Periodontal Diseases

KW - Primary Health Care

KW - Research Design

KW - Risk Assessment

KW - Risk Factors

KW - Journal Article

U2 - 10.1038/sj.bdj.2011.284

DO - 10.1038/sj.bdj.2011.284

M3 - Article

C2 - 21509009

VL - 210

SP - 351

EP - 354

JO - British Dental Journal

JF - British Dental Journal

SN - 1476-5373

IS - 8

ER -