Barriers to dental care utilization in a group of the elderly in Chonburi province

Abstract

This study aimed to determine barriers to dental care utilization, oral health status, the type of dental services and dental attendance patterns and the association of dental care utilization with its effecting factors of the elderly in Chonburi province. There were 329 subjects under studied, 81.8 % female, with a mean age of 66.06 years ( SD = 4.86 years ). All subjects were interviewed with the questionnaires by trained project assistants and then all subjects had an oral examination by one dentist. Regarding oral health status, 21 % of the subjects were total edentulism,76 % were partial dentate dentition and 3.0 % had complete dentition. Amongst the subjects, it was found that there was high need of dental treatment while half of them perceived their need. The elders reported dental caries to be their major oral health problems. Mode of time since last dental visit were within 2-3 years. Nine percent of the subjects stated that they had not received dental care in the last 5 years. It was found that the time since last dental visit was in association with the number of the remaining teeth ( p-value = 0.008) and the rating of the Simplified Oral Hygiene Index (OHI - S) ( p-value = 0.024 ). The subjects who had poor attitudes had made use of dental services in the year preceding the survey lower than those who had good attitudes and fair attitudes. The elders who had good and fair attitudes attended dental care regularly. The main reasons for utilization of dental care services in the subjects who attended dental care in previous 12 months were reported as dental pain or dental caries, denture problems and periodontal problems respectively. No symptoms and expense problems were the most commonly reported as barriers by the subjects who never had received dental care and those who did not attend dental care in previous 12 months. While no symptoms was claimed as the main barriers by the subjects who did not attend dental care on a regular basis. The results showed that there was association of financial resou