Communication theory in dental practice – Part one

The Government White Paper, Choosing Health: Making healthy choices easier encourages health professionals to promote healthy lifestyle choices to reduce health inequalities^1. This is something that all dental professionals are, or should be, working towards with their patients. It is quite likely that you are already having ‘health behaviour’ conversations with your patients and realising just how difficult it can be. In this first of a two-part article on communication, a number of theories are discussed and demonstrated through two real-life case studies which have been adapted from work submitted in partial fulfilment of the University of Kent BSc (Hons) Primary Dental Care second year module WL 511 Communication. Both part one and part two consider the use of communication theories to inform and influence different patient health behaviours, and hopefully demonstrate that skilful communication could contribute to improved oral health (OH) and thereby total health².