TY - JOUR T1 - The development of referral guidelines for dentists referring children for extractions under general anaesthesia. AU - Clayton,M, AU - Mackie,I C, PY - 2002/05/02/received PY - 2002/10/09/accepted PY - 2003/6/24/pubmed PY - 2003/9/25/medline PY - 2003/6/24/entrez SP - 561-5; discussion 557 JF - British dental journal JO - Br Dent J VL - 194 IS - 10 N2 - OBJECTIVE: To develop a set of guidelines for referral of children for simple extractions under general anaesthesia and to determine if services providing general anaesthetic extractions comply with the guidelines. DESIGN: The guidelines were developed with reference to published literature and experts in the field. Patient's records were used to determine the compliance with the guidelines. SETTING: Community dental services in the North West of England in 2000. SUBJECTS: One hundred and ninety six sets of patient records of children attending to have teeth extracted under general anaesthesia were studied. RESULTS: The mean age of the 196 children was 6.8 years (SD = 2.5 years) and ranged from 2.7 to 15.8 years. Caries was the prime reason for extractions (182; 93b). Of the 196 children who received a general anaesthetic, 103 (53%) dentists had complied with the general anaesthetic referral guidelines whilst 93 (47%) had not. There was wide variation in compliance across 11 trusts in the North West of England. The lowest compliance was 25% and the highest 93%. CONCLUSION: This study has demonstrated that there can be considerable agreement amongst a group of experts on what constitutes clear justification for extracting teeth under general anaesthesia. However there can be marked variation in compliance with these guidelines. SN - 0007-0610 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/12819731/The_development_of_referral_guidelines_for_dentists_referring_children_for_extractions_under_general_anaesthesia_ L2 - https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.4810208 DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -