Exploration of media articles related to dentistry in Australia

Objectives: Mass media is an important source of health information for the general public yet there is a dearth of published research describing the portrayal of dental articles in the newspaper media. The objectives of this study were to: (i) Investigate whether the Factiva database could be used to describe dental articles in Australian newspapers; and (ii) Quantitatively investigate content and trends in Australian newspaper articles about dentistry and oral health. Methods: The current study was a simple analysis to investigate newspaper articles relevant to dentistry in Australian major newspapers using the Factiva database to search numbers of articles for particular search terms individually and as intersection of terms. The West Australian, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian were searched for dental and oral health related terms. We then extracted relevant articles in these four newspapers from 1999 – 2008 and determined the subject area of the articles. Results: Factiva search was much quicker and was useful for searching for articles for trends. Dental articles per year ranged from 280-393. There was no clear increase in use of the term oral health and decrease in the term dental. .Number of articles related to: government fluctuated (mean 12%; range 9-19%), children increased (9%; 5-14%), elderly was stable (3%; 2-4%) and cost increased (5%; 2-11%) over the ten year period. Conclusions: Factiva searching provided a useful approach to investigate the newspaper media for trends in content. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to acknowledge the Australian Dental Research Foundation and Colgate for supporting this study.