Our Editorial Policy and Quality Assurance Procedures
How we create content
The content for Dental Fear Central is created largely by people with lived experience of dental phobia, fear or anxiety (the Dental Fear Central web team). When creating new pages or updating existing ones, we draw upon on our own experiences as well as the experiences of our support forum members. Where appropriate, we ask dental professionals for their input. This allows us to present in-depth information, ideas and tips coming from a wide range of perspectives.
Some of the articles on our websites have been written by dental professionals, or jointly with dental professionals.
We are committed to creating in-depth, high-quality, and up-to-date content that is useful to people who suffer with dental phobia, fear or anxiety, and to dental professionals alike.
Our team of experts
We have an advisory board and a team of dentists, medical professionals and psychologists who help us in making sure that the content on our website is accurate and current.
Our review process
Any article which contains clinical information is reviewed by an appropriate dental, medical, or mental health professional. Our panel of professionals is committed to keeping up-to-date with emerging trends, recommendations, and new technologies and techniques.
Non-clinical content is reviewed by members of our web team who have not been involved in creating the content.
At the start of each article, we clearly state whether the article was written by our web team (or a member of our web team) or by a professional.
If the article was written by non-dentists but contains clinical information, we provide the name of the reviewer and a link to their profile which lists their qualifications. Where appropriate, there may be more than one reviewer for a page (for example, if an article contains both dental and medical information).
User involvement
User involvement is very important to us. We will often ask members of our forum to comment on articles which are relevant to their fears. Based on their feedback, we will then edit pages or add to them during the review process. We may also approach forum members who have shared useful tips or experiences, and see if they would like to be quoted in articles on our website.
Our sources of information
References within articles are checked by our web team to ensure they are recent, authoritative, and come from a reputable source. Where applicable, sources are linked within articles or can be found in the Resources or Footnotes section at the bottom of our articles.
Staying up-to-date
Each article states when it was last updated. We have a set review and maintenance schedule. Each article gets reviewed at least every 3 years to ensure that it is in line with current guidelines, recommendations, and technologies. But updates can also be prompted by:
- new information becoming available
- feedback from our readers
- new clinical guidelines or recommendations
- changes in standards of care.
When someone alerts us about a potential problem with our content, such as inaccurate, outdated, or contradictory information, we act immediately. Our web team researches the feedback. If appropriate, we ask one or more members of our advisory board for their advice. We then revise, update and republish the content.
We welcome your feedback
If you have any questions or comments about the accuracy or usability of our content, if you feel that an article is out of date, or if you’d like to see something covered that hasn’t been mentioned yet, let us know by using our contact form.