Finnish dentists’ experiences with foreign-background patients—a qualitative study

Abstract

Objective

The population in many countries is becoming more diverse. The number of people from foreign backgrounds is growing in Finland as well. The aim of this study was to better understand how the foreign background of a patient affects the dentist’s work.

Methods

The research was carried out as a semi-structured interview. Six dentists from Helsinki municipality public dental care were interviewed between December 2019 and January 2020. After the interviews were transcribed verbatim, two members of the research group read individually the interviews to find emerging themes.

Results

The most common problems that arose in the interviews were problems within communication and interpretation. Periodontal diseases and the importance of self-care in treating them were observed to be unfamiliar to many foreign-background patients. The dentists also noticed different expressions of pain among foreign-background patients compared with native Finnish patients. The interviewed dentists thought that the length of time a patient had lived in Finland affected the experienced difficulties and the prejudice that the patients and dentists faced.

Conclusion

In this qualitative research, we were able to identify some of the common difficulties that the dentists experience while treating patients from foreign backgrounds, despite the small number of participants.