SDCEP launches guidance update

This May the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme (SDCEP) published a second edition of its Prevention and Management of Dental Caries in Children guidance.

The first edition of this guidance was published in 2010 and aimed to present clear and consistent advice to support dental professionals to deliver preventive care and, where necessary, to manage caries in children. The guidance was freely available from the www.sdcep.org.uk website and was a well respected document translated into a number of languages and used as an undergraduate teaching resource.

The updated guidance document has been thoroughly updated using a NICE accredited process and has involved a broader guidance development team with representation from across the UK and been endorsed by several of the dental faculties of the Royal Colleges, the British Society of Paediatric Dentistry and Childsmile.

Prevention and Management of Dental Caries in Children is designed to assist and support primary care practitioners and their teams in improving and maintaining the oral health of their young patients from birth up to the age of 16 years. Based on information distilled from a range of sources, this document provides clear guidance on what to do, when to do it and how to do it. It includes advice on:

  • assessing the child and family

  • helping the family manage dental care

  • delivery of preventive care based on caries risk

  • choosing from the range of caries management options available

  • delivery of restorative care, including how to carry out specific treatments

  • referral and recall

  • management of suspected dental neglect

  • working with other agencies to support and safeguard the wellbeing of children and young people.

Key changes in this updated version have seen an expansion of the recommendations on the management of dental caries, with a more comprehensive approach to management of children's primary and permanent teeth. Techniques on helping manage dental care have been brought together in a separate section.

The guidance is only available online and comes in two formats, ‘full version’ and a summary ‘Guidance in Brief’. These are both available from the SDCEP website at: -

http://www.sdcep.org.uk/published-guidance/caries-in-children/

New BestEvidence app in development

A new free mobile app designed to help healthcare professionals get access to high quality research evidence quickly and easily and help users access the best available research evidence at the point of patient care in real time is currently in development.

The app was conceived and designed by Amanda Burls, the Director of ThinkWell (http://www.ithinkwell.org/) and Professor of Public Health at City University of London. The development team includes Jon Brassey, the Lead for Knowledge Mobilisation at Public Health Wales (NHS) and Director of Trip Database Ltd and Jose Emparanza, Head of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology Unit at the University Hospital Donostia, Spain and a founding member of the International Society for Evidence-Based Health Care. (http://www.isehc.net/)

The Trip database (www.tripdatabase.com) provides the meta-search engine for clinical information and Jose Emparanza has explored the utility and acceptability of BestEvidence for promoting evidence-based practice with clinicians and established that there is a need and demand for this tool.

The app is currently in the alpha stage of development and already has some 700 users including a number of dentists who have undertaken over 3,500 searches. Shortly structured critical appraisal checklists will be added to the app but the developers are keen to receive feedback and suggestion for improvements and enhancements.

AHRQ's National Guideline Clearinghouse website to close

The Agency for Healthcare Research has announced that its Quality National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) website resource (https://guidelines.gov/) will not be available after the 16th July 2018.

Currently AHRQ is receiving expressions of interest from stakeholders interested in carrying on NGC's work. However, it is not clear when or if NGC (or something like NGC) will be online again. In addition, AHRQ has not yet determined whether, or to what extent, the Agency would have an ongoing role if a stakeholder were to continue to operate the NGC. The site will continue to post summaries of new and updated evidence-based clinical practice guidelines until July 2, 2018.