Healthy Smiles: Promoting Good Oral Health for Youth With Serious Mental Illness

Background

Individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) are disproportionally affected by oral diseases, contributing to already poor physical health outcomes. Young adults are particularly vulnerable, with high psychological distress and greater health service engagement barriers. Early adulthood is a key opportunity to change the trajectory of poor oral health among youth with SMI (YSMI) by supporting oral hygiene self-care routines and timely access to oral healthcare.

Objective

To explore factors that promote or inhibit Healthy Smiles: engagement in oral healthcare among Australian YSMI.

Methods

Exploratory interviews and a focus group were conducted. Purposeful sampling recruited 11 YSMI, a carer, peer support workers (n = 2) and oral and mental health practitioners (n = 3) providing health for YSMI (total = 17).

Results

Key strategies to improve oral health and access to services for YSMI were outlined: ensuring oral health practitioners had the mental health literacy, confidence and skills to work with this population and mental health practitioners had the oral health literacy and skills to support YSMI to practice oral hygiene self-care and access services; developing a range of youth-friendly promotional resources and communication channels to improve prevention awareness and reduce dental fear. A crucial element was the need for trusted relationships.

Conclusion

To prevent negative and life-impacting consequences of untimely oral healthcare access in early adulthood, systematic and targeted strategies for YSMI that focus on co-designed innovative models of care are urgently required.