Oral Health and Dental Service Utilization of Foreign Residents and Multicultural Families in Korea: a scoping review

Abstract

Background: Research on oral health and dental service utilization of foreign residents and multicultural families in Korea will play an important role as a fundamental data for establishing future oral health policies in the multicultural society.Objective: In this scoping review, previous studies on oral health and dental service utilization of foreign residents and multicultural families in Korea were reviewed, and the studies were classified according to research participants and research purposes. The variables related to oral health and dental service utilization and socio-demographic factors were also analyzed. Through this systematic review of literature, the limitations of existing research and future research directions were suggested.Design: Korean databases such as Korean Medical Database (KMbase), DBpia, Research Information Sharing Service (RISS), Korean studies Information Service System (KISS), and National Assembly Library were investigated to collect data regarding oral health and dental service utilization. Afterretrieving the references, the title and the abstract of the literature were reviewed and their relevance was screened. Full text screening was conducted and a total number of 42 studies were selected, which met the inclusion criteria.Results: After careful review and analysis of 42 studies, the following results were obtained: (a) the research participants were married migrant women, multicultural children and adolescents, foreign workers, and foreign students (four types), of whom the most frequent was marriage migrant women (45.5%) and (b) the research purposes were oral health behavior, oral health status, dental service utilization, oral health belief, oral health knowledge, and oral health education (six types), of which the most frequent was oral health behavior (39.7%).Conclusion: This research takes a systematic approach to exploring research participants, purposes, variables related to oral health and dental service utilization, and demographic variables of foreigners and multicultural families residing in Korea. According to the findings, the most published research topic of research participants was 'marriage migrant women' and oral health behavior has the highest number of publications in research purposes.