Technological aspects and recommendations for applying teledentistry in oral medicine: a scoping review.

Background: Teledentistry is applied in oral medicine to help dental practitioners and specialists manage complex oral conditions. This scoping review aims to synthesize the available evidence regarding the technical requirements and the provision of security services, as well as the recommendations on standard oral cavity photography methods for using teledentistry in oral medicine.

Method: The present scoping review was conducted in 2022 according to the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) manual. Four databases were systematically searched, including ISI Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and ProQuest, from January 1999 to December 2021. After finalizing the search strategy, all the original articles, reviews, editorials, letters, comments, and book chapters were included. All the dissertations uploaded in English with a full-text electronic file were also included to achieve a comprehensive picture of the available literature. Two types of analysis were applied: the quantitative descriptive analysis applying Excel 2016 and the qualitative thematic analysis using MAXQDA version 10.

Results: The included papers were published during 1999-2021. Most of the included articles were from Brazil (n = 9, 21.43%), India (n = 6, 14.28%), the USA (n = 6, 14.28%), and the UK (n = 5, 11.90%). Social media usage as a teledentistry platform increased considerably between 2019 and 2021. Teledentistry platforms have been classified into four categories, including email, telephone, social network applications (WhatsApp, zoom, Google Meeting, Instagram, line Application, Viber, and Messenger), and teledentistry systems (teledentistry systems, which were designed specially to perform a teledentistry project). Teledentistry has been conducted to store and forward (n = 15, 30.71%), real-time (n = 9, 21.43%), or both (n = 12, 35.71%). According to the thematic results, basic technical requirements have been categorized into four, including teledentistry platform, type of interactions, internet connection, and photography tool. Other thematic results demonstrate seven categories of recommendations, including general factors, light, patient position, phone position, setting of a mobile phone camera, photo sending requirements, and photo visualization.

Conclusion: According to the results, over the past 7 years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, social network applications such as WhatsApp and Zoom have been used more frequently. Also, photography recommendations with a mobile phone camera depend on several factors such as general factors, light, patient position, phone position, setting of the mobile phone camera, and photo-sending requirements. Given the increased use of mobile cameras for oral photography, these recommendations can help improve the quality of images and subsequently improve the reliability of clinical decision-making in managing patients' conditions.