Rural doctors lack confidence and training to provide dental care in small Australian communities, new research has shown.
In towns without a permanent public dentist, general practitioners may be the first port of call for patients with oral health problems.
The University of Tasmania’s Centre for Rural Health surveyed 30 GPs in South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania, and found only 18 were confident “within their scope of practice” of providing dental treatment and advice.
The research published by the Medical Journal of Australia showed some of the GPs were embarrassed by their lack of training in the field.
“I start off [with]… ‘sorry, I’m not a dentist’, and all I know is there are supposed to be 32 teeth in the mouth and that is pretty much all I know. I don’t have the training, absolutely not,” one respondent said.
Researcher Dr Ha Hoang said doctors generally had no choice but to treat their dental patients.
“Visiting oral health services were very limited, ranging from no visiting dental services at all to once a month, and the distances from the communities to their nearest dental service ranged from 40 kilometres to 200 kilometres,” she said.
“Each month, the GPs saw an average of 12 patients with oral health problems, including toothaches, dentures and trauma.
“From our findings, some GPs acknowledge that they weren’t confident when dealing with oral health problems, because they lack training in this area.”
Dr Hoang said the doctors would typically prescribe pain relief and urge the patients to see a dentist.
“The GPs also noted that, although they advise patients to see a dentist, they may not see the dentist because of the cost of travelling to, and seeing a dentist discouraged them,” she said.
The researchers have suggested that the problem could be resolved if doctors were given more training, and the community was more aware of good dental hygiene.
She said some of the doctors were not aware they could have referred a patient to a visiting dentist, who in some cases was “located in the same building or across the road”.
Rural Australians are often forced to wait weeks or months to see a public dentist.