Toward building a theoretical model of oral health care

Abstract

Oral health is an essential aspect of general health. Despite tremendous progress over the past century, oral health remains a serious issue worldwide, demonstrating that dental caries is the most common chronic illness. A lack of awareness of the factors that affect oral health may prevent individuals or society from intervening promptly and effectively to address oral problems. The field of oral health has attracted increasing attention in recent years. However, there is still a lack of integrated reviews that can identify areas where significant research has already been conducted and areas where there are still gaps in the knowledge of oral health determinants. This study is dedicated to providing an overview of the factors influencing oral health, based on a user-centered research approach. A pilot study investigates the critical factors extracted from the existing literature, and partial least squares structural equation modelling is applied to test the theoretical framework derived from factor analysis. This paper can serve as an exploratory investigation into the determinants of oral health, providing a theoretical model that can help researchers, designers, and healthcare professionals better target vacancy research and design for effective treatment and intervention for patients with oral problems. Based on the vacancies identified in this paper, a design concept for a toothbrush product is proposed in this paper to assist users in their daily oral care and enhance their oral health.

Date of Award	Mar 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Nottingham
Supervisor	Xu Sun (Supervisor) & Qingfeng Wang (Supervisor)