The quality of life of people with complex general pathology is highly impacted by their main disease in the first place. The severeness of the general pathology of these persons pushes oral health on a secondary place of concern. Oral hygiene, as a first and main preventive method, gets no privileged place in the time and energy-consuming complex global care for special needs patients and is often overlooked by parents and caregivers. In Romania we currently have no dedicated special oral care centers or academic departments for this particular segment of oral medicine, nor do we have a national strategy for prevention and treatment of oral disease in people with complex general conditions. International experience sharing from centers with tradition in the field, such as Strasbourg Reference Center of Oral and Dental Rare Diseases, Ospedale Bambino Gesu and Marmara University can be a start point for an adapted strategy in Romania. OSCAR will contribute to raising awareness among young dentists and society itself regarding the need for such a strategy. Given the undebatable need for specialists capable to deal with children/people with special oral care requirements, OSCAR aims to help raise the level of competence and skills of trained Paediatric Dentists more close to the level recommended by the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry, thus meeting the needs of both dental professionals and society. A positive influence is expected, in time, on the oral health status of children with complex pathology and ultimately on their quality of life. People with academic background from the project partners will work to put together a digital platform containing useful information on oral special care. During project progress, this information will be delivered to young dentists, residents in Paediatric Dentistry, by means of lectures and oral presentations during professional meetings. For better effectiveness, direct contact and interaction between dental professionals and children with special care needs will be organized during project preparation and also during the project itself. This is regarded as an important element, as feedback from families and caregivers of special needs children show that there is still a lot of reluctance among practitioners in dealing with special patients due mostly to the lack of experience. OSCAR will be introduced to the national communities of paediatric dentistry in the respective countries of the partners and further to the wider community of EU paediatric dentistry on the occasion of international meetings hosted by professional forums such as the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry, the International Association of Paediatric Dentistry and the International Association for Disability and Oral Health (IADH). The digital platform emerging from the project will be held available for use to all interested academic centers hosting postgraduate programs in the field. The success of OSCAR will be assessed by getting feedback from first beneficiaries (residents in PD) and from secondary beneficiaries - special needs patients, their families and caregivers. On short term, we expect a raise of awareness of pediatric dentistry residents regarding oral care needs of this special category of children. An improvement of knowledge and skills of young paedodontists is also expected as a result of their participation in the project. On long term, OSCAR is expected to promote recognition of professional qualification of Romanian dentists in other European countries. The Romanian post-graduate training program in Paediatric Dentistry would thus come closer to becoming eligible for European recognition and therefore become more attractive for international applicants.
We wanted to improve the access of dental professionals to practical information on managing children with special healthcare needs, to enhance their confidence in this direction and thus to enlarge the availability of professional oral care for this category of population. We also aimed to improve parents' and caregivers' literacy on the importance of oral health within the greater picture of general health and on the ways they can help avoid unwanted oral pathology. Raising awareness of civil society and health authorities with regard to the unmet oral treatment needs of children with complex general conditions was another objective of the project, opening a pathway towards creation of SOC compartments in children's hospitals.
OSCAR emerged from the reality that children with special healthcare needs (SHCN) are underserved in terms of oral health health provision in many countries. Dentists hesitate to provide treatment to disabled children, mostly from fear of doing harm. Differences between countries with regard to under and postgraduate training in Special Oral Care (SOC) are reflected in different attitudes of oral health professionals when dealing with SHCN patients. Parents tend to focus on the main condition of their SHCN children, often overlooking oral hygiene and the importance of periodic check-ups, and dental visits are often triggered by oral pain or discomfort. Main needs addressed: 1) need for more practical, readily applicable information on SOC which will encourage and enable young dental professionals to accept the challenge of providing preventive and curative SOC; 2) need to provide families and caregivers with accurate and easily reachable info on proper and efficient home oral care early enough as to ensure efficient primary prevention of oral disease. 3) need for dental professionals and SHCN patients (and families) to understand each other's feelings and perceptions in order to enhance efficient communication.