Key Points
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Improves reader awareness of barriers to dental attendance and the importance of cost to the patient of a dental examination.
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Patients' attendance patterns might be masked by methods of data presentation.
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Provides a method to obtain a continuous data set and a method to measure the possible effect of charges unconfounded by availability of dentists.
Abstract
Objective The aim of this study was to determine if increasing cost to the patient of an NHS dental examination was associated with a change in the uptake of dental examinations by Scottish adults aged 18 years and over. The null hypothesis was that there was no significant difference (a = 0.05) in the number of NHS dental examinations taken up by Scottish adults with increase in cost to the patient.
Method Data for this retrospective study of cost and dental attendance between 1982-1998 was collected from the British Dental Association and Scottish Dental Practice Division. The number of examinations per month per dentist was calculated for the years 1982-1998 as an indicator of dental attendance.
Results The reported number of NHS dental examinations increased by 34% between 1982 and 1998 from 1,564,330 to 2,099,944. However the reported number of general dental practitioners working in the NHS in Scotland increased by 48% from 1362 to 2012. The number of examinations per month per dentist decreased from 95.71 in 1982 to 86.98 in 1998.
Conclusion There was a significant (p = 0.001) reduction of 7.6% in the number of examinations per month per dentist after the introduction of charges. However within the charged data, while there is still a reduction, it was not significant. Other cost related factors may be influencing dental attendance and should be considered.
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Acknowledgements
This article forms part of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of MSc at the University of Edinburgh. The author is indebted to her supervisor Professor Philip Sutcliffe of Edinburgh Postgraduate Dental Institute. The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Bill Adams and Thorsten Forster at the Medical Statistics Unit, Department of Public Health, University of Edinburgh.
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Lacey, S. The relationship between NHS patient charges and the uptake of dental examinations by Scottish adults 1982-1998. Br Dent J 201, 361–364 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.4814012
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.4814012
