This pilot study should quantify knowledge about oral health issues published in common sources of continuing medical education for German physicians. The findings shall prime a qualitative approach towards cooperation of GP’s and dentists in Germany.
Method:
A systematic search with the strings: “dental” [zahnärztlich], “dentist” [zahnarzt] and “oral health” [mundgesundheit] was performed at: (1) the database for national medical guidelines (www.awmf.org); (2) the ‘Aerzteblatt’, which is the national “doctors-magazine” delivered to every German physician free of charge (http://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/recherche); (3) the national database for certified medical continuing education courses (http://www.baek-fortbildungssuche.de). Only results concerning oral/dental health in coherence with systemic diseases or medication as well as interdisciplinary care were included and full-text reviewed for validation of this very content.
Result:
Ad #1) 18 out of 887 (2%) medical guidelines contained relevant input for cooperation of dentists and physicians, mostly towards medication and bisphophonat intake (n=6), infections (n=3), and neurologic diseases (n=3). But, about one third (5/18) was out of date (before 2010). Ad #2) Since January 2003, 27 out of ~12,000 articles (0.2%) within the ‘Aerzteblatt’ mentioned at least one of the search words with concerned relevance. But, the context was widespread, including 12 overviews (with 9 different topics), 4 certified medical education articles and 9 letters or discussions. Most frequent topic was bisphophonate medication (n=4) and heart diseases (n=3). Ad #3) 16 courses were identified within 62.511 entries (0.02%). These include one course about “oral and systemic health interactions”, which was listed five times and taking place in the same city!
Conclusion:
The evidence of interactions between oral- and systemic diseases grew over the past ten years. Compared to evidence-based literature, this connection is underrepresented in German guidelines, trade press, and courses. Journal editors and decision makers in health services should improve and promote knowledge transfer.