Bridging difficult talk: dentists’ perceptions of an oral cancer communication aid

Description

Aim(s): Oral cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world. Although early detection improves survival (81% at Stage 1 vs. 17% at Stage 4), patient awareness remains low. Moreover, dental teams hesitate to discuss oral cancer due to perceived patient disinterest or anxiety. Question Prompt Lists (QPLs), as evidence-based tools often used in oncology, may facilitate the dentist-patient communication. The aim of this study was to explore dental providers’ views on the need, acceptability, and potential barriers/facilitators of using QPLs to raise patients’ oral cancer awareness during routine dental appointments.
Methods: Between January and April 2025, semi-structured interviews with Scottish primary care dentists were conducted via Teams through purposive sampling. A pre-study patient focus group informed the design. Interview data were analysed using framework analysis informed by the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA). The study was approved by the University Research Ethics Committee (Reference No. UOD-SREC-SDEN-2024-029).
Results: Twenty-one primary care dentists were recruited from high street dental practices and the public dental service. All the dentists agreed that QPL would facilitate the communication to raise patient oral cancer awareness, particularly for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and high-risk patients. Challenges were perceived to be time, costs for resources and training needed for implementation. Nevertheless, such challenges could be overcome when QPL was tailored for patient needs and adopted systematically by the healthcare system. This communication tool was also recommended by dentists to be used for the most common dental diseases such as caries and periodontal diseases in primary care dental settings.
Conclusions: Dentists supported QPLs as a feasible tool to improve oral cancer discussions, especially for older and high-risk patients, although systemic barriers like time and training were noted. Tailored design and institutional integration could address these challenges.

Period	26 Sept 2025
Degree of Recognition	International