Are dentists interested in the oral-systemic disease connection? A qualitative study of an online community of 450 practitioners.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Dentists in the US see an increasing number of patients with systemic conditions. These patients are challenging to care for when the relationship between oral and systemic disease is not well understood. The prevalence of professional isolation exacerbates the problem due to the difficulty in finding expert advice or peer support. This study aims to identify whether dentists discuss the oral-systemic connection and what aspects they discuss; to understand their perceptions of and attitudes toward the connection; and to determine what information they need to treat patients with systemic conditions.

Methods

We retrieved 14,576 messages posted to the Internet Dental Forum from April 2008 to May 2009. Using natural language processing and human classification, we id

SUBMITTER: Song M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3924341 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature