Navigating professional oral care for autistic children: a qualitative study with parents

Despite growing recognition of inclusion health, autistic children continue to face inequities in accessing dental care. This qualitative study explored how a sample of parents in Hong Kong navigated professional oral care for their autistic children to better understand the perceived barriers and facilitators to dental visits and treatment, as well as strategies and adaptations that support successful dental care.

Parents or caregivers of autistic children (≤ 18 years) were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling via parent groups, non‑governmental organisations and special schools. Data were collected through one-to-one, semi-structured in-depth interviews. Coding was undertaken by two researchers and refined through iterative team discussions to develop an inductive thematic framework.

Twenty-three parents of autistic children aged between 3 and 14 participated. Four themes were identified: (1) accessing dental care-barriers included difficulty finding willing and experienced dentists, high costs, fragmentation between dental and medical services, low prioritisation of oral health and fear of unsuccessful visits; (2) experiences at the dental visit-characterised by sensory overload, need for predictability, and significant emotional burden; (3) what parents value in dental visits-empathetic, flexible staff, sensory‑adapted environments, and partnership‑based communication; and (4) strategies to manage dental visits-pre-visit preparation, graded exposure, and inter-disciplinary collaboration with teachers and parent support groups.

Findings highlight the need for ASD‑specific training for the dental team, better integration of oral health into mainstream child services, clearer signposting of appropriate providers and schemes, and strengthened collaboration with families and schools.