Quality and Cost of Global Fluoride Toothpaste/Dentifrices; Scoping Review Protocol

Objectives: Fluoride remains central to dental caries prevention, and yet access to high quality, low cost fluoridated toothpaste/dentifrice varies. There is an urgent need to identify where the problems lie. A systematic “scoping” review of the global literature will identify key concepts, knowledge gaps and sources of evidence, ultimately generating hypotheses for further focussed study.
The aim of this scoping review is to map the nature and extent of problems related to the quality of toothpastes/dentifrices, their composition and costs, of fluoride containing toothpaste globally.
Methods: Using Arsky and O’Malley’s 2005 framework with Levac’s 2010 enhancements, we will follow 6 stages:
1. Refine research question;
2. Identify relevant studies. Literature search strategies will be developed using medical subject headings (MeSH). We will search PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, LILACS, Embase, Medline, Google Scholar databases and WHO Collaborating Centre leads will be contacted for local reports;
3. Study selection;
4. Data extraction/ charting will be performed independently by two reviewers with consensus through a third reviewer. Data charting will be an iterative process where reviewers will continually revisit the data charting form, discuss and agree additions;
5. Collate, summarize and report results; A summary numerical analysis of the nature and extent of studies will be through tables and charts. For qualitative data, a thematic analysis approach will investigate the literature breadth and how findings inform the initially designed research question; and
6. Consult including across WHO Oral Health Collaborating Centre members
Results: As this is a protocol for a review, there are no results yet.
Conclusions: Scoping review methodology is still relatively novel in Oral Health research but has been chosen for this work to help generate hypotheses. We will explore this scoping review methodology, its strengths and limitations, and present initial results.