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Integrating preventive oral care into prenatal care is suggested as a strategy for reducing the burden of oral diseases among pregnant women and their offspring. This scoping review sought to synthesize available information and identify knowledge gaps on integrating oral health into prenatal care.

The scoping review was conducted based on the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review framework using the following databases: CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Medline, ProQuest Dissertation and theses Global, Psychinfo and Web of Science®. No search limits were used. Content analysis of the included articles was performed to identify conceptual frameworks, types of integration used, study designs, study objectives and outcomes.

Overall, 2,861 references were obtained from the databases search; and based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria 35 references were included in the final analysis. Of these 35 references, one document presented a conceptual model, six documents reviewed guidelines for integrating oral health in prenatal care, two were policy documents aimed at interprofessional collaboration for oral health during pregnancy, eight documents described programs focused on providing oral care during pregnancy, five of the references were literature reviews and the remaining 13 evaluated the impact of integration. Linkages between healthcare professionals were the most common type of integration used.

Despite advances in understanding integrated care concepts for healthcare delivery, there is little evidence available on the impact of the various types of, and strategies for, integrating oral health into prenatal care. Future research to bridge the identified gaps is recommended.

The originality of this study is to provide evidence on integrated oral healthcare during pregnancy.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the oral health experiences of people living with HIV/AIDS in the provinces of Kwazulu-Natal (KZN) and Western Cape (WC) in South Africa. Many studies have reported that people living with HIV have unmet needs for dental care and this study considered the various factors that affect the accessibility and utilisation of dental services as these factors are even more pertinent for the people living with HIV who have increased need for dental care.

The participants were selected among HIV-positive people attending selected Community Health Centre and regional hospital HIV clinics in KZN and WC provinces. The sample consisted of people living with HIV that were 18 years or older and who had given written, informed consent. The sample (n=435) comprised mainly of black females in the age group 20-29 years. In total, 347 participants (79.8 per cent) had an oral health problem of which 83 per cent (n=288) received care.

Of those that received care, 56.6 per cent (n=163) of the participants stated that the staff were aware of their HIV status. Almost a third of the participants who received care reported a negative experience at the clinic. If the participant lived in a metropolitan area, the participant was 3.647 times more likely to receive care than if the participant lived in a non-metropolitan area (p < 0.01) If the participant earned R5,000 or less, the participant was 0.106 times less likely to receive care (p=0.048). If the participant lived 1-5 km from the clinic, the participant was 3.371 times more likely to receive care (p=0.015).

The results are specific to KZN and WC and cannot be extrapolated with caution to the rest of South Africa. However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, there is no other study that has compared differences in the use of oral health care services by people with HIV in South Africa and these results serve as an indication of some the important issues in this regard. Additionally, this study did not have a control group of HIV-negative people which would have enabled one to determine whether certain barriers were unique to people living with HIV.

The study highlighted the barriers to care existing within the current public health system relative to the provision of oral health services for people living with HIV in KZN and WC. It was anticipated that by ascertaining the nature and extent of unmet needs and barriers to dental care for people living with HIV, measures can be put in place to remove or at least reduce the barriers to care and improve the quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS in South African communities.

The high prevalence of oral health problems in people living with HIV makes it imperative for the DOH to make every attempt to remove barriers to oral health care and thereby secure equitable, affordable and accessible oral health care which is acceptable for people living with HIV and accountable to the greater society.

This study emphasises the importance of embracing people that are being discriminated and marginalised by society such as people living with HIV to ensure that they feel a franchised member of society who can take the initiative to be in control of their own health and, with the necessary aid from public resources and societal support, join forces to reduce the public health burden and its impact on the socio-economic milieu.

At the moment, Finnish oral health care is undergoing many changes. Little attention has been paid to issues of organisational culture and communication in Finnish oral health care. Yet the question of culture is of primary importance for changes in an organisation and for planning and reconstructing the rational functioning of an organisation. The purpose of this paper is to examine Finnish public oral health care within a theoretical framework of organisational culture and to identify the various cultural traits that appear to characterise Finnish oral health care. Using a cultural point of view, we develop an orientation for understanding more profoundly and specifically the processes concerning the functioning and change of oral health care.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the oral health care experiences of people living with HIV in Kwazulu-Natal (KZN) and the Western Cape (WC) and also to identify the role of stigma and discrimination in the oral health care experiences for people living with HIV in KZN and the WC.

This study was a survey among HIV-positive people attending selected Community Health Centres and regional hospitals, HIV clinics in KZN and WC provinces in South Africa. The sample consisted of people living with HIV that were 18 years or older and who had given written, informed consent. A cross-sectional study structure has been employed using a standardized format using a semi-structured interview and an administered questionnaire to collect data. The study classified participants as living in metropolitan or non-metropolitan areas.

Apprehension of loss of confidentiality, stigma and discrimination were the barriers that deterred participants from seeking care. Respondents stated that they feared what the dentist and staff would think of them being HIV positive and feared being discriminated against by the dentist and staff. In some instances there appears to be a difference between policy and practice regarding the oral health care needs of and services rendered to people living with HIV in public health facilities as there are still patients who do not obtain care and for whom the attitudes of the health care provider constitutes the major barrier to accessing that care.

The results are specific to KZN and WC and have to be extrapolated with caution to the rest of South Africa. Additionally, this study did not have a control group of HIV-negative people which would have enabled one to determine whether certain barriers were unique to people living with HIV.

To make recommendations with respect to addressing the issue of stigma and discrimination in the oral health care experiences for people living with HIV in KZN and the WC as there is a definite need for the government to address the resource needs of rural areas and less developed areas of South Africa. Health care is a much-needed resource in these high prevalence areas and governments must ensure that all their HIV/AIDS projects and policies should have a rural component built into them.

This study emphasizes the importance of embracing people that are being discriminated and marginalized by society such as people living with HIV to ensure that they feel a franchised member of society who can take the initiative to be in control of their own health and, with the necessary aid from public resources and societal support, join forces to reduce the public health burden and its impact on the socio-economic milieu.

To the best of the author's knowledge, there is no other study that has compared differences in the use of oral health care services by people with HIV in South Africa and these results serve as an indication of some the important issues in this regard.

Prisoners have poorer oral health than the general population. Good oral health is essential for both social and physical well-being. For prisoners, poor oral health is also related to drug use after release, whereas good oral health is related to successful reintegration into society. The purpose of this study was twofold: to examine the effect of an intervention based on motivational interviewing (MI) on prisoners’ oral health-related behavior and to assess if the intervention is a good fit for this population.

In total, 16 prisoners in a Norwegian prison were offered a brief MI-based intervention focusing on changing their oral health-related behavior. An oral examination was also performed and the prisoners received a small package containing oral hygiene aids. Two weeks later, a second oral examination and a semi-structured interview were conducted to explore the effect of the intervention and examine the prisoners’ responses to the intervention. Qualitative data analyzes were guided by thematic analysis.

The findings indicate that the intervention had positive effects on both the prisoners’ motivation to use oral health-related behavior and their performance of oral health-related behavior. The findings also indicate that the intervention was well adapted to the target population.

This is one of the first studies that explore the effect of an intervention in improving prisoners’ oral health and bridges a knowledge gap in the literature. The findings may increase the understanding of how dental services should be organized and offered to provide dental health care to this vulnerable group.

This paper aims to describe the cultural and communicational traits of Finnish oral health care. First, employees' views and experiences regarding their organization and their position within it are investigated and, second, relations between different individual and organizational factors are analyzed. Finally, a conceptual framework of organizational coherence is constructed.

The paper shows that data collection (n=58, 84 percent response rate) was carried out in 2002 at a Finnish dental clinic by using a semi‐structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed statistically by using, among other things, non‐parametric tests and a structural equation model (LISREL) and qualitatively by using content analysis.

The paper finds that the organization was described as role‐dependent and task‐centered. Unidirectional chain of communication and responsibility for interaction were observed as the descriptive traits of communication, regardless of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the communication. Developmental challenges involved opportunities to exert influence in the organization as well as giving and receiving feedback in leadership relations. It was found that a good sense of one's position in the organization was positively associated with several essential experiences (e.g. confidence, openness and equality), regarding organizational factors.

It appears in this paper likely that, by adopting the perspective of organizational coherence, it will be possible to approach the reality of an oral health care organization. As such a new and informative perspective is added.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and compare nurses’ and healthcare assistants’ oral care quality perceptions, including perceived reality (PR) and subjective importance (SI), to identify improvement areas in intensive care and short-term care, and to explore potential nursing satisfaction predictors regarding oral care.

Swedish staff, 154 within intensive care and 278 within short-term care responded to a modified quality of care from a patient perspective questionnaire. Descriptive and analytical statistics were used.

Staff scored oral care quality both high and low in relation to PR and SI. Improvement areas were identified, despite high satisfaction values regarding oral care. Setting, SI and PR explained 51.5 percent of the variance in staff satisfaction regarding oral care quality.

Quality improvements could guide oral care development.

This study describes oral care by comparing nurse perceptions of how important they perceive different oral care aspects and to what extent these oral care aspects are performed.

Oral health is an integral part of general health. Different population groups have been assessed for oral health status in India, but still, many have been neglected; one such group is the prisoners. The prison population is a unique and challenging one with many health problems, including poor oral health, which may be due to lack of knowledge about good oral health practices. This study aims to assess effectiveness of oral health education on oral health knowledge, attitude and practices and oral hygiene status among the male prison inmates of central jail in Kolkata, India.

An interventional study was done among 240 male convicts. The data was elicited using a structured proforma; oral health status was assessed by recording OHI-S index, and the severity of gingivitis was assessed by recording the gingival index. Oral health education was delivered by using audio-visual aid. Oral health knowledge, attitude, practices and oral hygiene and gingival status were reassessed among the inmates before and after dental education at the end of three and six months.

A significant change in oral health knowledge, attitude and practices was seen, which in turn resulted in an appreciable decrease in the mean gingival index score (1.73 ± 0.382 to 1.20 ± 0.321) and OHI-S (3.31 ± 0.815 to 2.57 ± 0.551) in all the inmates after oral health education program over the period of time.

The oral health education with reinforcement proved to be an effective tool to instil good oral hygiene practices in the inmates.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of oral hygiene promoting program (OHPP) using a smartphone endomicroscope among students in elementary schools in Bangkok, Thailand, to enable their oral hygiene maintenance and to compare oral health outcomes in the intervention program between the experimental and control groups.

This is a quasi-experimental research study consisting of two groups, a pretest, a posttest and a follow-up design. The student sample consisted of 59 fifth graders who matched the study criteria on medium and low levels of teeth brushing skills. There were 29 experimental group participants who completed the six-week OHPP using a smartphone endomicroscope. Another 30 participants formed the control group involved in the ordinary oral health education program. The comparison data for oral health behaviors (knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP)) and oral hygiene were statistically analyzed by using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).

Results indicated that the experimental group exhibited higher oral health behaviors regarding KAPs and oral hygiene related to teeth cleanliness and gum health than the control group in the postexperimental and follow-up phases. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups with regard to tongue cleanliness.

The students maintain their own oral hygiene due to a provision of activities related to KAP concerns. The instrument helped the students to find tooth decay and dental plaque associated with teeth cleanliness after brushing their teeth.