Integration of oral health into primary health care: A systematic review

Abstract

Integration of oral health into primary health care holds the key to affordable and accessible health care as oral health is still a neglected component in many countries. This review aims to determine integration of oral health into primary health care and provide an evidence-based synthesis on a primary oral healthcare approach. Searches were conducted in various databases like Biomed Central, MEDLINE, Cochrane databases, NCBI (PubMed), Sci-Hub, Google Scholar, and WHO sites. The studies included in this review are according to the following eligibility criteria: the articles in English language, the articles published from January 2000 to October 2018, and only full text article. The search yielded 500 articles. After removal of duplicates: 410 articles screened based on title and abstract, 100 full text articles were assessed for eligibility, and 30 full text articles were included. This review showed evidence how oral health is related to general health: focused on common risk factor approach and bidirectional relationship. There are various ways of integration, such as interprofessional education, interprofessional collaborative practice, closed-loop referral process, and various public and private partnerships, and at the same time, there are a lot of barriers in integration. Thus, the primary oral health care needs to be developed as an integral part of primary health care. Consequently, there is a need to increase finance, health care workforce, government support, and public–private partnership to achieve the goal of affordable and accessible health care, i.e. health for all.