Barriers to providing dental care for older people

The Medline, Embase and CINAHL databases were searched together with the reference lists of selected publications.

Studies published since January 1990 and published in English that looked at barriers, experienced by dentists, to delivering oral health care to people over the age of 65 were included. Study quality was assessed independently using criteria developed by the Dutch Cochrane Centre.

Study assessment and data extraction were carried out independently by two reviewers and a qualitative summary presented.

Seven cross-sectional studies were included. The focus was primarily on dentists delivering oral health care to older people in care homes with only one focused on barriers experienced by dentists working in their own practice and delivering oral health care to community-dwelling older people. The most common barriers to delivering oral health care to older people were identified respectively as: the lack of adequate equipment in a care home and no area for treatment available (n = 4) and the lack of adequate reimbursement for working in a care home (n = 5). In addition, the inadequate training and experience in delivering oral health care to older care home residents (n = 2) were mentioned. Four publications indicated the loss of time from private practice as a barrier to delivering oral health care in a care home.

Most articles retrieved described barriers experienced by dentists delivering oral health in care homes: much less is known about oral health care for community-dwelling older people. Therefore, we suggest that additional research should be initiated to investigate in more detail the barriers dentists experience in delivering oral health care to older people in their own dental practices.