The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of dentists in Wales. Br Dent J 2022; http://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-021-3756-7

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Like oral health, mental health has been an overlooked area of healthcare. This paper contributes to the growing literature on dentists' mental health, which has rightly become a focus for organisations within the sector. This reflects a wider societal shift in which taboos about mental health are being challenged and broken down. However, it is evident from various research studies that dentists and dental students continue to find it challenging to open up, and few experiencing psychological distress seek support.

The pandemic has clearly exacerbated long-standing problems, with dentists facing all of the same lockdowns, disruption, grief and loneliness as the general population, but while also having to deal with enhanced PPE, infection prevention and control guidance, backlogs, patient abuse, in some parts of the UK unreasonable NHS targets, and for private practices limited financial help.

The emergence of profession-led initiatives to provide support for dentists which have been designed by dentists has been heartening. Hopefully, this peer approach will lead more who are struggling to access the help they need.

These individual-level interventions are critical - sometimes life-saving - once someone has reached the point of psychological distress, but we need to prevent so many dentists from getting to that point. As found by this research and others,1 dentists already use adaptive coping strategies to manage stress and safeguard their wellbeing. This includes self-care, but notably also means making different professional choices; reducing NHS commitments or leaving it altogether, specialising clinical skills, or branching out into non-clinical fields. A recent BDA survey found that the most common career intention among associates over the next five years was to increase their private commitment, with four in ten planning to do so.

There is ample evidence that NHS contracts are a major factor in the levels of mental ill health among the profession. The way NHS dentistry works needs to change, not just for the health of patients, but for the health of dentists too.