Abstract
ObjectiveTo explore, through face to face interviews with a selection of General Dental Practitioners (GDPs), their views and experiences of having used the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) within primary care research studies for recording caries.MethodsThis qualitative study involved one on one interviews with eight GDP’s who had previously used ICDAS on patients in their dental practices as part of a research study. The participants were selected from among those who had taken part in two clinical studies in the UK using convenient, but purposive sampling. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed; the data analysis was conducted by thematic analysis.ResultsGDP’s indicated their beliefs that ICDAS had an important role in caries prevention but reported four main barriers while using the full (6 caries stages) ICDAS coding system in their practices: lack of simplicity of coding, financial implications and time consumption (in both training and use of ICDAS) and inadequate undergraduate training. An overarching theme identified from the GDPS was the willingness to offer potential solutions to their barriers which might improve the utilisation of the system in primary care.ConclusionThe GDPs experienced common obstacles in using ICDAS in the primary care setting, many of which have relatively straight-forward solutions which they put forward themselves such as: incentivisation, undergraduate-level training in ICDAS for both dentists and nurses and computerized data entry. Further qualitative and quantitative research is needed on how to facilitate the utilisation of the system in dental practice. It is also recommended to explore the influences of wider agencies on influencing primary dental care professionals’ caries management, including appropriate recording of diagnosis and risk assessment.
Highlights
Dental caries is a multifaceted disease [1]
To achieve in-depth information about the research topic participants were chosen with varying years in practice as General Dental Practitioners (GDPs), gender, age and current working role, their main characteristics are shown in (Table 2)
The analysis used an inductive approach to identify themes as highlighted in the thematic map S1 Fig. The map shows the interrelationship between the themes and illustrates facilitating factors related to using the International caries detection and assessment system (ICDAS) system
Summary
Dental caries is a multifaceted disease [1]. The International caries detection and assessment system (ICDAS) was developed to address disharmonies of the previous systems by using their best elements and demonstrating abilities in standardising caries assessment [6]. This system combines components of various caries classification systems into one standard system by the use of a six-point scale that ranges from the earliest visible stage of enamel caries to extensive lesions with cavitation exposing dentine in order to describe caries severity stages (Table 1) [7]
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