Dentists and dental health education: a study of the perceptions of 28 community dentists.

The aim of this paper is to describe the perceived problems and difficulties of 28 community dentists when carrying out dental health education. Their perceptions are discussed in relation to some wider implications for prevention and dental health education. Sociological literature has identified two differing approaches to health education; these are the lifestyle/individualistic and the socio-structural approaches. The dentists' responses were found to be congruent with the former. The format of the paper is first, to highlight the increasing emphasis in the official literature on the need for dentists to practise dental health education in the dental surgery. Second, the study method, which is essentially qualitative, is outlined, and third, the findings of interviews carried out with the 28 dentists are presented. These findings raise issues for discussion. An underlying concern of this paper is that before enthusiastically endorsing dental health education in the dental surgery it is necessary to clarify what the people involved understand by it, and the extent to which they are willing and able to adopt new practices.