Characteristics of Patients Attending Gerodontology and Special Care Dentistry Outpatient Clinic in Thailand and the Referral Reasons by Dentists and Auxiliaries

ABSTRACT Background There has been no study addressing referral reasons to gerodontology and special care dentistry (GD/SCD) clinics in Thailand. It was unclear how Thai dentists perceived the scope of care. Objectives This study aimed to (1) describe the characteristics of patients attending the GD/SCD clinic of Thammasat University Hospital (TUH) and (2) explore the referral reasons from the perspectives of dentists and auxiliaries. Methods We reviewed the electronic medical record (EMR) of the calendar year of 2019 for patient profiles as well as written reasons for referral. Later, we conducted in‐depth interviews with seven dentists and five auxiliaries to explore their reasons. Inductive thematic content analysis was employed with the consensus between the two researchers. Results EMR revealed that among 328 patients, most patients were in a young‐old group (mean age 69.1±10.1), who had 5