Table 4.

Impact of dental treatment on patients

Oral health impacts	Improved oral hygiene	‘Something happened to me, I stopped brushing – it was like a form of self‐harm, I just stopped brushing my teeth for a whole year, but now she’s [dentist] got me brushing twice, three times a day’ (patient, participant 17); ‘Dental care is on the agenda here [homeless hostel] now, which is great’ (volunteer, participant 7)
Physical health impacts	Enhanced nutrition	‘He was very drawn, very thin, it aged him, he would eat separately because of his inability to chew …’ (support worker, participant 1)
Psychosocial impacts	Improved confidence and self‐esteem	‘It helps you get your confidence back’ (patient, participant 10); ‘It’s given them the confidence that perhaps they didn’t have before to enable them to go on and try and better themselves’ (staff, participant 19).
	Getting a smile back	‘I feel 100% better, I can smile again’ (patient, participant 9) ‘when we fitted them [dentures] it changed her life completely, she couldn’t stop smiling’ (staff, participant 6)
	Happiness	‘I haven’t got words to say how happy I am, it’s that last thing for me to get sorted out, to start my new life because I didn’t half get judged for bad teeth, people out in the shops notice and that, they’re all so happy for me because they saw how down and depressed I was all the time, I never smiled … it makes a lot of difference’ (patient, participant 8)
	Improved body image	‘I’ve only just started to look in the mirror, I haven’t looked at myself in the mirror for fifteen years’ (patient, participant 8)
	Learning to trust health‐care professionals	‘I’ve gone from someone that will actually physically harm a dentist [through fear], to actually going because I started to trust, I learned how to trust’ (patient, participant 8)
Economic impacts	Employment	‘It gave me so much more confidence, a lot’s come out of that, I mean the day I actually got my dentures I had a job interview and I just felt so much more comfortable and I actually got the job’ (patient, participant 9)
	Wider service engagement beyond the dental clinic	‘it’s helped me get a job it’s helped me like move forward in society like training and everything so it’s meant a great deal towards my future’ (patient, participant 8)
	Career aspirations	‘It’s made me think a bit broader on what I can do’ (patient participant 3)