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Introduction UK dentists experience high levels of stress, anxiety and burnout. Poor mental health can lead practitioners to exit the profession, contributing to workforce and service loss. Therefore, there is a need to focus on interventions to protect the mental health and wellbeing of dental teams. Three levels of intervention can be deployed in the workplace to support mental health and wellbeing: primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. Aim The aim of this systematic review was to identify evidence on interventions used to prevent, improve or tackle mental health issues among dental team members and dental profession students in countries of very high development. Methods This systematic review was conducted according to a predefined protocol and reported according to PRISMA guidelines. The MEDLINE, Embase CINAHL, DOSS, Scopus, and PsycINFO databases were searched. Prospective empirical studies were considered for inclusion. The Effective Public Health Practice Project Quality Assessment Tool (EPHPP) was used to assess the methodological quality of the included studies. The identified interventions were categorised according to level of prevention. Results The search yielded 12,919 results. Eight studies met the inclusion criteria. All of the studies concerned dentists or dental students. There were no studies for other groups of dental professionals. No primary prevention-level studies were identified. Secondary prevention-level studies (n = 4) included various psychoeducational interventions aiming to raise awareness and improve coping skills and led to significant improvements in stress levels and burnout of dentists and dental students. Tertiary prevention-level studies (n = 4) mainly employed counselling which was shown to be beneficial for dentists and students experiencing psychological ill-health. Conclusions Mental wellbeing awareness should be put at the centre of dental education and the workplace. Leadership and innovation are required to design primary-level interventions which can be implemented in the UK dental sector, with its distinct organisational and service characteristics.

Objective: To examine the impact of treating carious teeth on children’s and adolescents’ anthropometric outcomes. Basic research design: Four electronic databases and four electronic clinical trials registries were searched. Two reviewers independently conducted the screening, data extraction and critical appraisal. The Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for Randomised Controlled Trials was used to assess the risk of bias in the included studies. Results: The searches yielded 399 potential studies. Following deduplication and screening of the papers, four were considered eligible for inclusion of which two referred to the same study. None of the included studies was found to have a high risk of bias in any of the domains. However, performance bias was deemed of unclear risk in all studies. One of the studies found that following extraction of pulpally involved teeth, underweight children exhibited a statistically significant improvement in their weight-for-age (change in mean=0.26; p

Additional file 5. Illustrative quotations for each domain. Illustrative quotations for each of the six domains.

Additional file 2. Search strategy that was used in Ovid Embase (and adapted for use in other databases). The search strategy used in Ovid EMBASE.

Characteristics of studies included in the systematic review. This table presents details of all the studies that were included in the review and their citations (end of the table). The studies are grouped according to the type of relationship they identified, with some studies finding more than one pattern of relationship. (DOCX 150 kb)

Reasons for exclusion of full text articles from the review. This file lists all the full text articles that were excluded from the present review along with the reason for their exclusion. (DOCX 36 kb)

Risk of flaws in each individual study and across studies. The table contains the risk of flaws between and within studies against all major and minor domains that were evaluated. The meanings of abbreviations are as follow: L = Low risk of flaw; H = High risk flaw; U = Unclear risk flaw; NA = not applicable. (DOCX 71 kb)

Objective: To examine the spatial clustering of obesity and dental caries in young children in Plymouth, United Kingdom, to evaluate the association between these conditions and deprivation, and explore the impact of neighbourhood-level characteristics on their distribution. Basic research design: Cross-sectional study analysing data from the National Child Measurement Programme (N=2427) and the Local Dental Health Survey (N=1425). The association of deprivation with weight status and caries was determined at individual and area level, using ANOVA and Poisson models. The overall spatial clustering was assessed using a modified version of the Global Moran's I, while clusters were located through Local Indicators of Spatial Association. Spatial autocorrelation was assessed using the variograms of the raw values. Log-linear Poisson models were fitted to assess the significance of neighbourhood characteristics on overweight/obesity and caries distribution. Results: At an individual level, deprivation was not associated with BMI z-scores but was a significant predictor of caries (p

Background: Obesity and dental caries are two of the most common conditions affecting children and both have significant implications on children’s wellbeing and future health. Even though research into the relationship between the two conditions has been conducted for many years, results to date remain equivocal. Furthermore, the majority of the studies only examined individual-level determinants of the two conditions. Aim: The current work aimed to examine the nature, direction and effect size of the relationship between obesity and caries in children in Plymouth, United Kingdom. It also aimed to better understand the individual and the broader environmental determinants of the two conditions. Methods: The study was divided into three parts: a systematic review examining the relationship between the two conditions in children and adolescents using a validated and study design specific tool; an analysis of extant data concerning Plymouth children’s weight status and dental caries using a spatial approach; and lastly a school survey of local children aged four to six years, where different types of obesity were examined in relation to dental caries. In the latter survey, several neighbourhood-level and individual characteristics were also examined in relation to the two conditions. Results: The systematic review indicated that there was no consistent association between high Body Mass Index and caries in individuals less than 18 years old. The ecological study identified spatial clusters of obesity and caries in Plymouth children and the results supported the importance of developing geographically focused prevention and intervention strategies which take into account the presence of spatial heterogeneity. The school survey did not find evidence of a relationship between any type of obesity and caries in Plymouth children but identified several indicators that affect the distribution of the two conditions. Conclusions: This work has given insight into the nature, direction and size of the relationship between obesity and caries in Plymouth children and has highlighted several indicators which need to be considered when developing local public health interventions. Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine & Dentistry (PU PSMD)