A Survey Among General Practitioners and Periodontal Specialists in Norway Documenting a Positive Attitude Towards Guideline-Based Referral Practise.

AIM

The objective of this cross-sectional survey was to assess the attitude among general practitioners (GPs) and periodontal specialists (PSs) in Norway towards developing and implementing guideline-based periodontal referral practise.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A multiple-choice questionnaire was distributed online to a sample of professionally active GPs and PSs. The survey included questions on demographics, practise profile, proficiency and insight among oral healthcare providers, periodontal referral patterns, and attitude on establishing guideline-based referral practise. Logistic regression analyses were employed to estimate associations between dependent and selected independent variables. Inverse probability weights (IPW) were applied to adjust for non-response in the logistic regression models.

RESULTS

Analyses were based on answers from 353 GPs and 49 PSs. The majority of GPs (77.9%) considered periodontal referral guidelines as a useful tool if they were available, and 59.2% of PSs expressed a positive attitude for implementing guideline-based referral practise to prevent premature or delayed referrals. In total, 93.9% of PSs reported that patients with periodontitis were being referred from GPs too late either frequently or sometimes. Females tended to be more interested in utilising referral guidelines than males (odds ratio, OR = 2.89, p < 0.001). Older GPs and those with increasing years of practising, were less interested in using referral guidelines than younger and more inexperienced GPs (both p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The findings document a positive attitude and significant need for developing and implementing periodontal referral guidelines among GPs and PSs, ensuring timely identification and referral of patients with periodontitis.