Derek Richards

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Derek Richards is a specialist in dental public health, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Dentistry and Specialist Advisor to the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme (SDCEP) Development Team. A former editor of the Evidence-Based Dentistry Journal and chief blogger for the Dental Elf website until December 2023. Derek has been involved with a wide range of evidence-based initiatives both nationally and internationally since 1994. Derek retired from the NHS in 2019 remaining as a part-time senior lecturer at Dundee Dental School until the end of 2023.

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Dental trauma, associations and risk factors

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This overview of the associations and risk factors for the occurrence of traumatic dental injury included 19 stustamatic reviews. The reviews considered 22 differing risk factors but only 4 of the reviews were assessed to be of moderate quality the remainder being considered to be of low (11) or critically low (4)quality.

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Dental Anxiety: Prevalence in children and adolescents

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This review of the global prevalence of dental anxiety in children and adolescents included 50 studies reported in 57 papers. The findings showed that dental anxiety is a frequent problem in 3‐ to 18‐year‐olds worldwide being commoner in schoolchildren and preschool children than in adolescents.

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Motivational Interviewing: Is it effective in preventing early childhood caries?

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This review of teh effectivenesss of motivational interviewing (MI) in the prevention of early childhood caries included 14 trials of which eight ccontributed to the meta-analyses. The findings suggest that approached based on MI may be useful in prevention of early childhood caries.

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Oral health promotion programmes for adolescents

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Accessing online mental health sites is becoming easier due to the availability of laptops and smart phones, meaning teenagers can be connected wherever they are

This review of the effectiveness of health promotion interventions on oral health knowledge, behaviour and status of healthy adolescents included 28 programmes reported in 37 publications.

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Osteoradionecrosis and denture use in head and neck cancer patients

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This review assessing the evidence of the impact of replacing missing teeth with dentures on the development of osteoradionecrosis in patients who have radiotherapy for head and neck cancer only identified 3 case-controlled studies of very low quality.

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Oral Cancer – Referral by primary care doctors and dentists

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This review comparing primary care doctors and dentists in the referral of oral cancer included 22 mainly retrospective studies. Doctors refered sliightly more than dentists, typically 50% compared with 40% respectively.

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Orthodontic pain: The efficacy of analgesics

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This review of the efficacy of of analgesics on the relief of pain during orthodontic treatment included 12 RCTs. The findings demonstrate that analgesics were more effective than placebo in controlling orthodontic pain

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Third molars: Which local anaesthetic is most suitable for inferior alveolar nerve blocks?

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This review comparing the efficacy and safety of currently available local anaesthetics for lower third molar extraction included 24 RCTs. The findings suggest that 4% articaine was the most effective and lidocaine the safest.

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Denture fabrication: Conventional or simplified approaches

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This review od conventional versus simplified verses conventional fabrication techniques for complete dentures included 19 RCTs. The findings suggest that there are no differences between the simple and conventional approaches in terms of patients satisfaction, masticatory efficiency and OHRQoL at least in the short term.

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Endodontic microsurgery

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This review of the clinical and radiographic long-term outcome of endodontic microsurgery in teeth diagnosed with secondary apical periodontitis included 10 studies suggesting an overall success rate ranging from 69-93%.

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