Referral patterns and the referral system for oral surgery care. Part 1: General dental practitioner referral patterns

Objective To investigate current GDP oral surgery referral patterns given t he anticipated change since the introduction by the General Dental Council of the specialty of surgical dentistry. Design Postal questionnaire. Setting 400 GDPs in Greater Manchester. Results 84% participation rate. 69% of dentists made a referral because of anticipated difficulty of surgery and 49% because of the complex nature of the patients' medical history. Practitioners who had undergone some oral su rgery postgraduate training were more likely to undertake more surgery in t heir practices (P < 0.01) and to refer more patients for specialist care (P < 0.05). While female practitioners rated their own surgical confidence le ss highly than male practitioners (P < 0.001), and younger practitioners le ss than their older colleagues (P > 0.05), there was no significant differe nce in the number ofreferrals made. Conclusion The most common reasons for referral were the anticipated diffic ulty of surgery and patient medical compromise. There was a wide variation between practitioners in the number of patients referred for specialist car e, Postgraduate oral surgery training was identified as a factor contributi ng to this variation. Other practitioner variables, such as sex, experience and type of practice were not found to contribute.