Abstract
Objective:The purpose of this study is to identify general dentists’ information needs for oral cancer screening in community and the information sources they use to meet those needs in clinical settings so as to inform the design of dental information systems. Methods:A semi-structured interview was conducted with a convenience sample of 8 general dentists and 5 dental assistant in the Public Health Region 9 area during clinical hours. One hundred and five patient cases were reported by these dentists. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed using thematic analysis with a constant comparative method to identify categories and themes regarding information needs and information source use patterns. Results:Two top-level categories of information needs were identified: foreground and background information needs. To meet these needs, dentists used four types of information sources: clinical information/tasks, risk factor of oral cancer in general people, surveillance in community and referral to oral cancer treatment. Major themes of dentists’ unmet information needs include: (1) timely access to information on various subjects; (2) better visual representations of dental problems; (3) access to patient-specific evidence-based information; and (4) accurate, complete and consistent documentation of patient records. Resource use patterns include: (1) dentists information needs matched information source use; (2) little use of electronic sources took place during treatment; (3) source use depended on the nature and complexity of the dental problems; and (4) dentists and dental nurse routinely practiced cross-referencing to verify patient information. Conclusions:Dentists have various information needs of oral cancer at the point of care. For future development of dental information or clinical decision support systems, developers should consider integrating high-quality, up-to-date clinical evidence into comprehensive and easily accessible EDRs as well as supporting dentists’ resource use patterns as identified in the study.
Highlights
Dental informatics is a field to supporting dental care
The purpose of this study is to identify general dentists’ information needs for oral cancer screening in community and the information sources they use to meet those needs in clinical settings so as to inform the design of dental information systems
Information needs of general dentists Dentists’ information needs for oral cancer screening varied by nature and number depending on the oral cancer screening options and patient characteristics
Summary
Dental informatics is a field to supporting dental care. Mostly of dentist unknown about the important of dental informatics is, what its meaning are, what it has accomplish and how dentist can get involved in the protocol for screening in community (Schleyer, 2001). Dental informatics can be consider as sub domain of medical informatics that links information technology, communication and healthcare to improve the quality and safety for patient care data. It has involved some part of biomedical informatics and follows by SNODENT standard (Goldberg et al, 2005; Schleyer, 2003). Dentists inquired about issues beyond the medical or biological aspects of a dental problem These information needs, such as population at risk, dental health behaviors and welfare scheme, though at the background of the current problem, are indispensable in helping dentists to reason about possible causes of the problem to make well-informed diagnoses and joint treatment decisions with patients.
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