The Determinants of the Use of Oral Health Care Services by Consumers in West Africa: The Case of Senegal

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the determinants in the resort to oral health care by the Senegalese populations. To achieve this, we have carried out a transversal descriptive study. Our results show that the patients living less than 5 kilometers away or between 5 and 10 kilometers away from the nearest health care facilities go more to the public dental ones than to the other types of facilities, with respectively 15% and 26%. People who have no source of income or only one source of income tend to go to public dental facilities with respectively 17% and 34%. In all the study population, 38% of the people go to the public dental facilities and pay themselves for the care fees, whereas only 12.5% go to the public dental facilities and have a mutual health insurance. The distance between the living place and the heath care facility, the type of job, the level of education, the monthly income and the type of medical care, are the factors that influence Senegalese people's use of oral health care services.