'It's like being in a tunnel': Understanding the patient journey from tooth loss to life with removable dentures.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to conceptualise the key stages of the patient journey in the provision of a new denture and examine the factors leading to successful patient-related outcomes.

Methods: Two partially dentate patient samples were included: (i) Denture wearers - patients who had a denture fitted within the previous five years and (ii) New dentures - patients receiving treatment for a new or replacement denture. The methods involved direct targeted participant observations of the denture fitting process, debriefing interviews and a follow-up focus group exploring the patient journey.

What Can Patient Narratives Reveal to Us About the Experience of a Diagnosis of Myeloma? A Qualitative Scoping Review.

In recent years, there have been major advances in treatment options for myeloma and an improved prognosis as a result. There is a wealth of literature that explores the experience of specific treatments from a clinical perspective but there is comparatively little known about the reality of living with myeloma. This research aims to explore the experience of a myeloma diagnosis, to map out key patient experience literature, and examine common themes to support both medical practice and the planning of further research.

Social practice theory: An innovative approach to considering preschool children's poor oral health.

Oral disease in early childhood is highly prevalent and costly and impacts on the child and family with significant societal costs. Current approaches have largely failed to improve young children's oral health. This paper proposes a different approach to conceptualize poor oral health in preschool children (0-5 years) using social practices.

Dental professionals' experiences of managing children with carious lesions in their primary teeth - a qualitative study within the FiCTION randomised controlled trial.

Background: The lack of evidence for the effective management of carious lesions in children's primary teeth has caused uncertainty for the dental profession and patients. Possible approaches include conventional and biological management alongside best practice prevention, and best practice prevention alone. The FiCTION trial assessed the effectiveness of these options, and included a qualitative study exploring dental professionals' (DPs) experiences of delivering the different treatment arms.

Rasch model of the child perceptions questionnaire in multi-country data.

Objective: To be fit-for-purpose, oral health-related quality of life instruments must possess a range of psychometric properties which had not been fully examined in the 16-item Short Form Child Perceptions Questionnaire for children aged 11 to 14 years (CPQ ISF-16). We used advanced statistical approaches to determine the CPQ's measurement accuracy, precision, invariance and dimensionality and analyzed whether age range could be extended from 8 to 15 years.

Methods: Fit to the Rasch model was examined in 6648 8-to-15-year-olds from Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Germany, United Kingdom, Brazil and Mexico.

Remuneration of primary dental care in England: a qualitative framework analysis of perspectives of a new service delivery model incorporating incentives for improved access, quality and health outcomes.

Objective: This study aimed to describe stakeholder perspectives of a new service delivery model in primary care dentistry incorporating incentives for access, quality and health outcomes.

Design: Data were collected through observations, interviews and focus groups.

Setting: This was conducted under six UK primary dental care practices, three working under the incentive-driven contract and three working under the traditional activity-based contract.

'I didn't want to pass that on to my child, being afraid to go to the dentist': making sense of oral health through narratives of connectedness over the life course.

While previous sociological research on oral health has identified the relevance of personal relationships, there is more scope to analyse the mouth through a lens of connectedness. Recent qualitative interviews with 43 older people (65+) in England and Scotland found that participants constructed relational narratives to make sense of their oral health practices. By drawing on ideas of family practices, family display and personal life, we illustrate how the mouth can be understood relationally.

Oral care as a life course project: A qualitative grounded theory study.

Objective: To report on a theory to explain the oral health of older people over the life course.

Background: The study of ageing has burgeoned into a complex interdisciplinary field of research, yet there are few studies in oral health from the perspective of older people that bridge the gap between sociology and oral health related research.

Methods: A grounded theory study involving a convenience sample of 15 men and 28 women aged between 65 and 91 years across different levels of education.

Complete tooth loss as status passage.

The aim of this article is to add to the literature on the sociology of oral health and dentistry by presenting the relevance of status passage to the study of complete tooth loss. The article reports on an analysis of data taken from participants residing in the Nelson region of New Zealand. In total the data include interviews from 20 participants, all of whom had their remaining natural teeth removed before 1960.

The INCENTIVE protocol: an evaluation of the organisation and delivery of NHS dental healthcare to patients-innovation in the commissioning of primary dental care service delivery and organisation in the UK.

Introduction: In England, in 2006, new dental contracts devolved commissioning of dental services locally to Primary Care Trusts to meet the needs of their local population. The new national General Dental Services contracts (nGDS) were based on payment for Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) awarded in three treatment bands based on complexity of care. Recently, contract currency in UK dentistry is evolving from UDAs based on volume and case complexity towards 'blended contracts' that include incentives linked with key performance indicators such as quality and improved health outcome.

Differentiation and displacement: Unpicking the relationship between accounts of illness and social structure.

This article seeks to unpack the relationship between social structure and accounts of illness. Taking dentine hypersensitivity as an example, this article explores the perspective that accounts of illness are sense-making processes that draw on a readily available pool of meaning. This pool of meaning is composed of a series of distinctions that make available a range of different lines of communication and action about such conditions.

Impairment effects, disability and dry mouth: Exploring the public and private dimensions.

Existing accounts of dry mouth concentrate on the medical dimensions and almost completely neglect to consider its social dimensions. Simultaneously, debates on disability have highlighted an apparent split between the individual (medical) and social models of disability. The concept of 'impairment effects' aims to address this dichotomised approach.

The Dentine Hypersensitivity Experience Questionnaire: a longitudinal validation study.

Aim: To validate the Dentine Hypersensitivity Experience Questionnaire in terms of responsiveness to change and to determine the minimally important difference.

Materials And Methods: The study was a secondary analysis of data from three randomized controlled trials with 311 participants. Three aspects of responsiveness were examined: change within individuals, differences among people who improved, stayed the same or worsened using an external referent and change due to treatment.

Children's and adolescent's perspectives on cleft lip and/or palate.

Objective: Children's voices are being increasingly acknowledged in health care research. The aim of this study was to explore children's and young people's perspectives of being born with a cleft lip and/or palate.

Design: The research took a qualitative approach that consisted of two interviews with each child, drawing on child-centered methodologies and techniques.

Form and semantics of communication in dental encounters: oral health, probability and time.

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it introduces a new method for capturing the intricacy of communication in contemporary healthcare encounters. The method, termed 'form analysis', was developed from the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann.

Construction and validation of the quality of life measure for dentine hypersensitivity (DHEQ).

Aim: To develop and validate a condition specific measure of oral health-related quality of life for dentine hypersensitivity (Dentine Hypersensitivity Experience Questionnaire, DHEQ).

Materials And Methods: Questionnaire construction used a multi-staged impact approach and an explicit theoretical model. Qualitative and quantitative development and validation included in-depth interviews, focus groups and cross-sectional questionnaire studies in a general population (n=160) and a clinical sample (n=108).

Is the short-form Child Perceptions Questionnaire meaningful and relevant to children with malocclusion in the UK?

Objective: To explore the face and content validity of the 16-item short-form of CPQ11-14 (CPQ ISF-16), an oral health-related quality of life measure (OHRQoL) measure, with young people with malocclusion in the UK.

Design: Qualitative study.

Setting: Interviews about CPQ ISF-16 were conducted in participants' homes.

Seen but not heard: a systematic review of the place of the child in 21st-century dental research.

Background: The position of children in society has changed with increasing emphasis on children's rights and child-centred services. This study aimed to describe the extent to which contemporary oral health research has been conducted with or on children.

Design: A systematic review of the child dental literature from 2000-2005 was conducted.