Objective: To describe the experiences of general-practising dental professionals in managing oral dryness. Materials and methods: The purposive selection of dentists and dental hygienists sought to create a cohort with varying years of professional experience, of both genders, and in dissimilar working regions and workplaces for one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify themes and categories, where themes represented the interpretative aspect and categories, the descriptive aspect. Results: Thirteen informants were interviewed (4 dentists, 9 dental hygienists; of these, 9 worked in the Swedish Public Dental Service; 4, in private dental care). Two themes emerged from the analysis. The first theme, “Challenges in managing oral dryness”, comprised five categories: heterogeneity of the patient group, barriers to measuring salivary secretion, routines perceived as vague, lack of treatment options, and necessity to stay current. The second theme, “A patient-centred approach in managing oral dryness”, had three categories: tailoring questions to the individual, viewing the patient holistically, and sharing decision-making. Conclusion: Managing patients with oral dryness is challenging. The study suggests that a patient-centred approach, based on the individual needs of the patient, is crucial for managing patients with oral dryness in the dental situation. Clinical implications: This study stresses the importance of a patient-centred approach in providing individual support for patients with oral dryness. Dental professionals should query all patients about perceived dry mouth. In cases of positive responses, determination of the salivary secretion rate is essential for a comprehensive diagnosis.

Background 

Home visiting programmes aiming to support parents and promote more equal health amongst youngchildren have grown in Sweden and in other countries. These programmes involve interprofessional teams. Teamworkin interprofessional contexts often requires setting boundaries, but professionals’ boundary work in the home settingis unexplored. Therefore, this article focuses on interprofessional teams comprising child healthcare nurses, midwives,social workers, and dental hygienists in a home visiting programme for first-time parents in Sweden; it aims to explorehow the professionals performed boundary work that enabled collaboration and to investigate important contextualconditions for this kind of boundary work.

Methods

The data were drawn from semi-structured interviews with twelve professionals from the four differentdisciplines. Content analysis was used to explore their boundary work.

Results

The findings show that the professionals performed three forms of collaborative boundary work. They maintained boundaries by clarifying their distinct roles and expertise. However, the differences were viewed ascomplementary, and the professionals worked together humbly to complement each other’s knowledge andperspectives. Lastly, they tended to drop perceptions of prestige and blurred the boundaries to accommodate theiroverlapping knowledge. Important conditions for the success of collaborative boundary work were meetings prior tothe home visits, the opportunities for discussion and reflection after the home visits, and the informal character of thehome setting. Consequently, the professionals were able to jointly contribute to a holistic view of the visited families,which increased the possibilities to meet these families’ needs.

Conclusions 

This study contributes knowledge on boundary work in interprofessional collaborations in thehome setting. The informal character of the home setting seemed to facilitate collaboration and contributed tocreating informal professional roles. The findings suggest that having interprofessional teams in the home settingenabled collaboration as well as reinforced support for first-time parents, which emphasizes the merit of home visitprogrammes

Teamtandvård är inget nytt. Hur patientarbetet ska organiseras är en ständigt aktuell fråga, inte minst med tanke på tandläkarbristen och långa väntetider för patienter på många håll i landet. I ljuset av detta kan det ses som självklart att tandläkare tar hjälp av tandhygienister och tandsköterskor som arbetar självständigt med patienter och att de olika yrkesgruppernas kompetenser används på bästa sätt för att möta patienters behov av tandvård. Bland annat argumenteras det för teamtandvård i artiklar i Dental24, men även i andra sammanhang.

Background: A home visiting programme was offered to first-time parents in the south of Sweden to reduce health inequalities among young children and support parents. The programme involved a collaboration between child healthcare nurses and midwives, social work-ers, and dental hygienists/dental nurses. It is unusual for dental professionals to participate in such programmes. Objective: To describe the experiences of collaboration between child healthcare nurses and dental professionals and their views on the programme from a dental perspective. Basic Research Design: Qualitative semi-structured interview study with content analysis. Participants: Four child healthcare nurses, three dental hygienists, and two dental nurses. Results: Analysis identified five themes: contribution of knowledge, reinforced oral health advice, family-based oral health advice, financial considerations, and future role of the dental care. Conclusions: Participants stressed the importance of dental professionals' knowledge, the need for child healthcare nurses and dental professional to conduct home visits together to deliver family-based and reinforced dental advice. They suggested a follow-up visit and the participation of the public dental service before a private dental care provider since most children will visit a public dentist later. The programme was perceived as worth the costs, but for the best utility, the resources should primarily be for non-native parents. Further research should focus on the effect of the home visiting programme on the children's oral health.

Objective

To explore dental professionals’ perceptions of their role in the practice of oral health promotion.

Material and method

In-depth interviews were conducted with three dentists, one specialist dentist and seven dental hygienists. All were employed in the public dental service in Kalmar County, Sweden and had at least two years’ work experience. The interview questions addressed the experience and views of dental professionals with reference to their role in the practice of health promotion. The interview data were subjected to qualitative content analysis.

Results

Analysis revealed two themes which capture the essence of the dental professionals’ perception of their role in the practice of oral health promotion. One theme, having person-focused approach, comprised four categories: ‘considering the patient’s life situation’, ‘establishing a trusting relationship with patients’, ’strengthening patients’ commitment to oral health’ and ‘health education’. The other theme, perceiving social responsibility for oral health, comprised three categories: ‘dissemination of oral health knowledge’, ‘interprofessional collaboration’ and ‘equality in oral health care’.

Conclusion

Dental professionals perceived promotion of oral health to be an important aspect of their professional role. They aspired to patient participation in the decisionmaking process and educational activities, as well as practising and evaluating skills development. Although the dental professionals perceived that they undertook health promotion activities, they did not clearly distinguish between oral health promotion and disease prevention. There was intra- and interprofessional agreement among the dentists and dental hygienists with respect to expected outcomes for health promotion activities.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore oral health-related salutogenic factors in orally healthy older Swedish people, applying the three components of Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence (SOC) concept: comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness.

MATERIAL AND METHOD: Interviews were conducted with 12 orally healthy patients, aged 75 years and older, enrolled at public dental clinics. The interviews were subjected to qualitative content analysis, applying the SOC concept as the theoretical framework.

RESULTS: Three themes were formulated under the predefined SOC components, describing the central meaning of the informants' perception of factors favourable to their good oral health. The theme 'comprehension of cause and effect' consisted of three categories, for example importance of oral hygiene, and reflected the component comprehensibility. The theme 'living in confidence and trust in supporting society' consisted of five categories, for example self-esteem, and reflected the component manageability. The theme 'good oral health as a basis for satisfaction and social confidence' consisted of two categories, for example social norms, and reflected the component meaningfulness.

CONCLUSION: This study discloses how orally healthy elderly Swedish people perceive the lifelong impact of salutogenic factors in response to lifelong stressors on their oral health and highlights the important roles of their internal resources, dental professionals, family and society in supporting and reinforcing lifelong oral health.

Family home visiting programs delivering early childhood services are supported by politicians and policy makers in many countries. This study focuses on a home visiting program for first-time parents in a county in Sweden. The program comprises six home visits conducted by interprofessional teams, including child healthcare nurses, midwives, social workers and dental hygienists, with the aim to increase accessibility to child healthcare and to promote more equal health in young children. Child healthcare, maternal care, social services and dental care organisations participated voluntarily in the program. This study explores how middle managers of the participating organisations view the program. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with ten middle managers. The interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis as a method. The results show that the middle managers saw the home visiting program as beneficial for society, parents and children, and the participating organisations and professionals. In other words, they expressed both altruistic goals and a self-interest in participating. The study is of importance as middle managers‟ decision to participate in a home visiting program might be grounded on their perceptions of the program.