A theory of oral healthcare decision-making in Appalachia.

Autor: Wiener RC; Department of Dental Public Health and Professional Practice, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, United States of America., Waters C; Department of Dental Research, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, United States of America., Bhandari R; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, United States of America.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 May 20; Vol. 19 (5), pp. e0303831. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 May 20 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303831
Abstrakt: Introduction: People make oral healthcare decisions regardless of having partial information, misinformation, sources that deliberately mislead, or information that is culturally influenced. This is particularly true in the Appalachian culture where oral healthcare decision-making practices are not well understood by researchers and dental professionals. Despite efforts to improve dental care utilization, the Appalachia region remains low in oral healthcare utilization. There is a need for a theory to identify concepts in decision-making when seeking oral healthcare. The theory could be useful in creating oral health interventions. The study objective is to develop a theory to identify concepts that influence oral healthcare decision-making in Appalachia (OHDA).
Methods: The researchers used a grounded theory qualitative study design to explain data for a theory of OHDA. Participants from Appalachia, in 20-minute interviews, provided insights into concepts that influence OHDA from August 22, 2017 to May 26, 2022. Notes/memos were written during and after the interviews and coding was conducted after the interviews. Open coding categories emerged through constant comparison of responses.
Results: Five overarching concepts that embody OHDA were discovered: Affect (Level of Pain/Emotion/Stress involvement), Awareness, Trust/belief, Resources, and Risk Perception. All participants discussed the impact of social media toward these concepts.
Conclusion: To influence a person's OHDA, public health officials and researchers need to address the person's affect, level of awareness, trust/belief, available resources, and risk perception. Social media is very important in awareness concerning oral health information. These factors are important to consider for similar research in oral healthcare utilization at the population level.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Wiener et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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