Utilization of dental services and its relation to the periodontal status in a group of South Australian employees

Abstract

The pattern of dental service utilization, the perception of periodontal disease, and the oral hygiene habits among 642 industrial employees were evaluated using a self-administered questionnaire against background variables of age, sex, and socioeconomic strata. Of the study population, 50.5% had their most recent dental visit within the previous 12 months and 42.5% claimed to seek regular check ups. There was no significant association between time intervals since the last dental visit and age, sex, occupation, income or education. Regular visits were made more often by subjects in the higher occupation and income level. Multivariate analyses of the number of missing teeth simultaneously considering age, sex, socioeconomic level, regularity and frequency of dental visits revealed that except for age and sex, no other factors were significant. The most common reason for not seeing a dentist in the previous 12 months was an assumption that "nothing was wrong". A large majority of the group surveyed were unaware of the presence of periodontal disease or the need for its treatment, despite the high prevalence in all subgroups. Periodontal status was not significantly associated with sex, socioeconomic levels, regularity of frequency of dental visits, but there was a significant regression on age. The study population's pattern of service utilization was found to be similar to that reported for the general population, and it was anticipated that the hygiene habits of the group was representative of the total community. If that assumption is true the high prevalence of periodontal disease of the study population probably exists in the general community.

Utilisation of dental services in Turkey: a cross-sectional survey

“…Education level was also found to be a significant factor influencing dental service utilisation in our study, as in various others 1,2,5,6,16,19 . Better educated individuals use dental services significantly more than less educated individuals.…”

“…Findings of various studies show that utilisation of dental services is influenced by a number of variables such as socio-demographic characteristics of the individuals, perceived dental health, peoples health beliefs and attitudes toward dental problems, dental fear, financial problems and organisation of dental services in the country 16 .…”

Assessment of Dental caries status, Periodontal health and oral hygiene practices among two Populations of Moradabad city, India

“…a previous study on Finnish Industrial population showing the progression of periodontal disease with advancing age [9]. The study done on South Australian employees also showed that regression of periodontal status as age advances [10]. The results of our study were in correlance with the studies done on factory workers in Shangai, China [11] and Araraquara, in Brazil [12], Davangere city; Karnataka that calculus was the commonest score among industrial workers [13].…”

Dental health status and treatment needs of transport workers of a northern Indian city: A cross-sectional study

“…[25] More number of subjects in the study had disease confined to reversible gingivitis which is contrary to that reported by some other studies. [2526] This could be due to the reason that large percentage of subjects used to brush their teeth at least once a day. The most prevalent treatment need in the study was plaque control and scaling which was also in agreement with the results a study conducted by Roman.…”