Development of patient-centric eating advice for complete denture wearers

Edentulous people eat less healthily, and wearing dentures impairs eating function and enjoyment.

To apply a sequential approach to integrate scientific evidence, and patient and professional experience to co-develop intervention to support better eating with dentures.

Focus groups, two with purposive samples of patients and two with dental professionals, explored experiences and opinions about advice on eating with complete dentures. Findings were distilled with evidence from the literature to underpinned concepts for eating interventions. User engagement informed prioritisation of ideas and led to the development of a leaflet on eating with dentures.

Patients receive no advice on what they can realistically expect when eating with dentures, and professionals lacked confidence to provide eating advice. Patients did not think dentists a credible provider of eating advice, feeling peer support more appropriate and offering numerous strategies for eating with dentures. Concepts for eating intervention included a patient leaflet, Web-based eating interventions, patient support blogs, waiting room videos and improved nutrition training for dental professionals. User feedback informed prioritisation of ideas, leading to the development of a leaflet on eating with dentures. Justified by the data, the leaflet focused on patient-generated tips for overcoming the functional limitations of eating with dentures, and unobtrusive healthier eating advice. Face validity with users confirmed acceptability.

A systematic and rigorous integration of scientific evidence, expert experience and patient input has developed a patient-centric, evidence-based approach to a patent leaflet on eating with dentures that, based on initial face validity, is likely to be well received.