Domiciliary dental care: a scoping review of the literature.

Abstract

Aim: Domiciliary dental care is the provision of dental care for those patients who are unable to attend a clinic due to a disability or impairment. This scoping review aimed to identify developments in the literature regarding the provision of adult domiciliary dental care.

Materials and methods: The Arksey and O'Malley framework was used and findings were reported in line with PRISMA-ScR. Subject specific library support was used to produce a search strategy using MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms and key words to identify studies published in English between January 2009 and October 2025 relevant to the topic area. Database searching of Medline, Embase, PsycINFO and CINAHL was conducted alongside hand searching.

Results: In total, 45 primary research papers were included. Study types included qualitative research, observational studies and economic evaluations. Key themes identified included patient and staff reported barriers, facilitators to enable or improve domiciliary dental care and the role of dental team skill mix and education.

Discussion: There is currently an absence of rigorous research into dental care in domiciliary settings, likely due to ethical, financial and logistical complexity of undertaking research in this area. Research that has currently been undertaken is mainly focused on older patients living in care facilities.

Conclusions: Domiciliary dental care is an essential service for patients unable to attend a dental clinic due to a significant disability or impairment. Whilst a formal quality assessment of individual studies is not carried out in scoping review methodology, the results of this review identified a number of barriers to its provision. Appropriate risk assessment, education and the effective use of technology were identified as possible facilitators. Further research is needed to enable the provision of evidence-based care to this vulnerable population.