Assessment of cooperation and compliance in adult patients at three stages of orthodontic treatment at a tertiary care hospital: A cross-sectional study

Classifying Children’s Behaviour at the Dentist—What about ‘Burnout’?

In children and young people, complex and prolonged dental treatment can sometimes be met with resistance despite previously successful treatment appointments. While this has traditionally been referred to as a ‘loss of cooperation’ or ‘non-compliance’, these children may actually be experiencing ‘burnout’, of which many may have the potential to recover and complete their course of treatment. Burnout has been defined as “the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results”. Traditionally, burnout is experienced by those who deliver services rather than be in receipt of a service; however, the burnout concept proposed in this paper explores it as an alternative perspective to other dentally relevant psychosocial conditions and should be considered when employing appropriate behaviour management techniques and coping strategies for paediatric patients. The intention of this paper is not to establish firm grounds for this new concept in healthcare, but to start a discussion and motivate further theoretical and empirical research. The introduction of the ‘burnout triad model’ and the importance of communication aims to highlight the tripartite influence of patients, parents and professionals engaged in the central ‘care experience’ and underlines the belief that early recognition and management of potential signs of burnout may help reduce the likelihood of those involved developing the condition.

The World Wide Web of orthodontics- A comprehensive narrative on teledentistry pertaining to the orthodontics of the 21st century

Teledentistry has proven effective in practically all dental fields. It also allows access to inaccessible and underdeveloped locations. Better treatment outcomes were documented in patients treated by an orthodontist supervised by teledentistry than by a general dentist with minimal orthodontic experience alone. It may also help to focus referrals to specialists and weed out those who do not need them. But, on a critical note, a doctor-patient relationship is much more than a business transaction. A face-to-face initial consultation instills trust that a remote session cannot. Teledentistry includes professional networking of doctors. This contact includes digital information exchange, CPD programs, case discussions, and analysis that bring dentists from all around the world together to improve patient care. Teledentistry has not only spanned the distance between dentists worldwide, but has also served as a conduit between customer (patient) and manufacturer. This spawned Direct to Consumer (DTC) dentistry, sparking substantial debate among dentists worldwide. In DTC dentistry, inadequately trained customers conduct complex procedures on themselves with minimal guidance of a dentist. One of the major issues today is the general availability of clear aligners to patients without the requirement for an intermediary skilled orthodontist. The American Association of Orthodontists (AAO) has publicly questioned the validity of Smile Direct Club, a private firm that dominates the DTC industry. European Federation of Orthodontic Specialists Association, on the other hand, has sponsored a joint declaration with the representative orthodontic associations in Europe to highlight and alert patients about the potential risks of DTC products. Unfortunately, public shaming hasn't slowed commercialization of DTC firms. Teledentistry has been a boon for healthcare, but a nightmare for our profession, raising fundamental questions like what is the difference between a customer and a patient? Is dentistry a just another discipline of cosmetics? Is teledentistry making us less connected with our patients?