A survey of dental attendance for the over 60s

Key Points

• Inequalities in health service use are also seen in dental service use by the aged.

• Disadvantaged aged are clearly not attending dental professionals.

• These disadvantaged groups need targeting before the impact of age restricts their access to treatment.

• Prevention is important in these groups — resource allocation is a dental priority.

• Dental care of older persons requires innovative long-term strategies.

Abstract

Objective To determine factors associated with dental attendance by those of 60 years or older in a population-based sample.

Design Cross-sectional national health survey.

Setting The study used data from the Australian 1995 National Health Survey, which consisted of people interviewed by households.

Subjects and methods A total of 7,544 eligible respondents randomly selected by households from defined statistical areas.

Main outcome measures The main outcome investigated in this study was having had a dental visit in the previous 12 months.

Main results Age, income, level of social disadvantage, level of education, uptake of private health insurance, smoking, exercise, self assessment of health and having a health concession card all independently influenced the attendance ratios. In combination, after adjusting for all other factors, factors associated with having visited a dentist for males were age, years of schooling, level of social disadvantage, exercise level index, possession of a health concession card and smoking status. Factors associated with having visited for females were age, education, exercise, smoking status and some levels of the interaction between possession of a health concession card and level of social disadvantage.

Conclusions The strong influence of age, education, exercise and smoking status indicated a need to target dental services towards those elderly persons in low attendance groups, which mostly represented disadvantaged groups.

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