FACTORS INHIBITING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ATRAUMATIC RESTORATIVE TREATMENT APPROACH IN PUBLIC ORAL HEALTH SERVICES IN GAUTENG PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA

Objective: To investigate potential barriers to the utilisation of the ART approach in a South African public oral health service. Method: 7 barriers were identified: patient load/work load, operator opinion, patient opinion, service management, material supply, clinical ART skill, chair-side assistance. Operators were asked to answer a questionnaire one year after completing the ART training. Responses ranged from 1 = no barrier to 5 = highest barrier. Treatment data per operator were collected during 1 year after training, for both dentitions, including: number of extracted teeth, placed traditional restorations, ART restorations. The restoration/extraction (REX) ratio and the proportion of ART restorations (ART%) of the total number of restorations were calculated and correlated with the barrier variables. Pearson correlation, ANOVA and 2-tailed t-tests were used in the statistical analyses. Results: Patient load/work load (mean = 2.80: SE = 0.16) was the strongest barrier (p