How Oral Medicine Practice Is Reported: A Scoping Review of 114,971 Patients

This review aimed to: (i) identify the variables used by oral medicine services (OMS) to describe the scope of their clinical practices and (ii) identify gaps in the availability of these variables in the literature to guide future research on the characterisation of OM practices. To address the following question: What characteristics from studies on clinical practice have been used to describe the scope of practice in OM?

This scoping review followed the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Electronic searches were conducted in the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, LILACS and grey literature. The presence of the following variables was assessed: referral source, age, sex, medical profile, diagnosis, procedures and follow-up.

A total of 12 studies met the eligibility criteria, comprising 15 OMS across 10 countries and including 114,971 patients. Some studies specifically aimed to characterise OMS practice, while others focused on specific aspects of these practices. Most studies examined variables such as referral source, age, sex and diagnosis.

There are gaps in the description of the OMS scope of practice in the literature, particularly regarding patient follow-up, characterisation of the range of procedures performed and documentation of patients' medical profiles.