Salutogenic Approach to Oral Health Promotion

The overall aim of this study is to investigate and understand the role of salutogenic theory and its application to oral health promotion through five principles of the Ottawa Charter. The objectives of this study includes the view of oral health promoters(OHPs) on a salutogenic approach and its contribution to oral health promotion, its influence in policy and practice, and the concept of the sense of coherence (SOC) as framework in achieving good oral health. The rationale of this study is to understand how the principles of the Ottawa Charter can serve the integration of a salutogenic approach to an oral health promotion paradigm by using it as an alternative to accessing population contexts. The research incorporates a constructivist approach focusing on OHPs’ understanding of oral diseases based on a salutogenic approach in the UK context. Qualitative enquiry was chosen and an analysis was conducted using a thematic approach. Snowballing strategy of purposive sampling was used for recruiting ten OHPs for this study.