As dental services buckle under the stresses of understaffing and long waitlists, people are having difficulty receiving the dental advice and treatment they need. Since the COVID-19 pandemic these struggles have deepened; it is suspected that people are looking to other healthcare services including general practitioner (GP) appointments as a way of finding help.
While GPs can prescribe medication for pain relief and provide general health advice, they do not have the means or equipment to treat complicated dental problems in their practices. As a result, the efficiency of primary care services themselves are becoming even more strained. The effects on primary care for dental patient encounters is not clear in the UK.
This research project will use primary care medical records to determine the impact of dental encounters in primary care. Using statistical methods, we will explore the trends in time and geography to understand healthcare burden of GP dental patient encounters. We will also study patient information such as age, gender, and region, as well as their medical history to understand the patient groups who are seeking dental care from their GP services.
Not only will this inform healthcare providers on the burden, the results of this study could also guide future policy as evidence for better integration of primary medical and dental services.
It has been well-reported that in recent times dental services have struggled with understaffing and long waitlists. As such, patients are having difficulty receiving the dental advice and treatment they need. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this issue; with patients looking to other healthcare services including general practitioner (GP) appointments for their dental problems.
In primary care, patients with dental complaints may receive general advice and/or prescriptions of antibiotics or pain relief, however these are not long-term solutions and often the dental problem can worsen. Certain patient groups may be more likely to attend primary care with dental complaints due to limited access to dental appointments. With the growing evidence for links between oral-systemic diseases, dental encounters in primary care may indicate symptoms of uncontrolled chronic disease.
As yet there has been no largescale population-based study that provides high-resolution insights into the healthcare burden of dental patient encounters in primary care in the UK.
Specifically, the study will:
1. Describe the temporal trends, prescribing and geographic variations in the incidence of dental encounters that patients present with at GP practices.
2. Examine the impact of COVID-19 on GP dental consultations
3. Assess associations between GP dental consultations and sociodemographic, clinical (patient-level) and practice characteristics.
4. Quantify the incidence of hospitalisation following dental patient encounters in primary care.
Quantifying the population trends of GP dental patient encounters will reveal the healthcare burden of this issue. Linkage of deprivation data will reveal associations between GP dental consultations and sociodemographic and practice characteristics. Demonstrating subsequent hospitalisation and development of co-morbidities via examination of linked secondary care data (HES) could also reveal more about oral-systemic disease trajectories. The expected impact of this work is to inform strategies for better integration of primary medical and dental services at a crucial time in healthcare reform.
Primary outcome: dental patient encounters in primary care.
Secondary outcome: hospitalisation; disease diagnoses and secondary care referrals.
Jianhua Wu - Chief Investigator - Queen Mary University of London
Harriet Larvin - Corresponding Applicant - Queen Mary University of London
Vanessa Muirhead - Collaborator - Queen Mary University of London
HES Admitted Patient Care;Patient Level Index of Multiple Deprivation;Practice Level Index of Multiple Deprivation