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Mago A et al. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2018; 46: 225–230.

The aim of this study was to explore how homeless people in Vancouver interpret, appraise and cope with dental care. Audio-recorded interviews with 25 homeless people purposefully selected for a range of experiences, were transcribed and analysed. The process of interpretive description drawing from the Behavioural Model for Vulnerable Populations and Lazarus's Theory of Emotions identified how participants appraised and coped with dental care. Four dominant themes were identified: barriers to care, service use, opinions on dental health and improving dental services. Participants were anxious about the cost of dentistry and fearful of dentists. They received emergency dental care with difficulty, usually in hospital emergency departments, although mostly they preferred self-treatment. They acknowledged the importance of dental health but felt stigmatised by their homelessness and visibly unhealthy mouths. They wanted more accessible dental services with financial assistance from the government, more widespread information about community dental clinics and less humiliating discrimination from dentists.