Effect of Different Frequencies of Dental Visits on Dental Caries and Periodontal Disease: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Recommending dental visits every six months is commonplace among dental practitioners worldwide. A scoping review was conducted by electronically searching PubMed, Scopus and Embase to identify and map the nature of evidence for the effect of different frequencies of dental visits on dental caries and periodontal disease. Studies were written in English on the frequency of dental visits and published between January 2008 and April 2023. Three systematic reviews that evaluated the risk of bias, strength of studies and certainty of evidence were included from the 4537 articles yielded through the search strategy. The available evidence was weak and of low quality for the currently recommended frequencies of dental visits, whether these are fixed or universal. For adults, there was little to no effect of making biannual, biennial or risk-based dental visits on dental caries and periodontal disease, which was supported by moderate- to high-certainty evidence. Accordingly, it is suggested that dental professionals and dental insurance providers make individually tailored, customised and risk-based recommendations for dental visits, rather than encouraging fixed or universal frequencies of dental visits. For children and adolescents, further research on this issue warrants well-designed randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies of sufficient duration with an adequate number of participants.