General dental practitioner views on providing alcohol related health advice; an exploratory study

Factors that influence delivery of tobacco cessation support in general dental practice: a narrative review

“…Our findings also suggest that dentists perceived that the additional patient charges for giving lifestyle support may adversely affect the professional patient relationship . This is consistent with some of the barriers in the wider literature .…”

“…It has been reported in the literature that dentists feel uncomfortable having alcohol‐related discussions with their patients and considered there to be a lack of appropriate management pathways . Training in this area has been shown to significantly enhance skills in asking alcohol related questions and advising patients to reduce drinking .…”

“…There has been some research into the possible barriers for dental professionals’ delivering lifestyle interventions. Reported barriers include lack of time, financial factors, lack of personal skills, and concerns about an adverse effect on the professional–patient relationship . However, despite these it has been shown that dentists are amenable to focusing on prevention in dental practice with education, training and reimbursement for time to deliver interventions being cited as facilitators .…”

Delivering alcohol screening and alcohol brief interventions within general dental practice: rationale and overview of the evidence

“…17 In common with other healthcare professionals, 49,50 some dentists have reported a reluctance and unwillingness to discuss alcohol consumption with their patients and provide advice on alcohol moderation, 16,17,19,35,47,51 with GDPs less likely to provide advice than specialists. 42 They report a range of barriers [16][17][18][19][20]35,51 to routinely discussing alcohol with their patients. These range from lack of time to lack of funding and also a lack of sufficient training; these are not insignificant, as the way in which general dental practice is funded in Scotland does not emphasise preventive activities, which are not remunerated.…”

Alcohol and the dental team: relevance, risk, role and responsibility

“…Topics mandated for regular CPD update (such as oral cancer) will furnish the dentist with information about risk factors such as alcohol but unfortunately factors persist in preventing engagement by dental professionals. The barriers and have been previously explained and reported (5,6), and are closely entwined with dentist attitudes to alcohol, beliefs about a dentists role in delivering risk advice, the perceived relevance (or lack of) to dentistry by both dentist and patient, concerns about negative consequences, lack of confidence and potential embarrassment.…”