Dental health, dental neglect, and use of services in an adult Dunedin population sample

Abstract

Considerable social and economic changes have occurred since New Zealand's last national oral health survey over 13 years ago. The effects of those changes on adult oral health and the use of dental services remain largely unknown. The aims of this study were to examine self-reported oral health and the use of dental services in an adult Dunedin population sample, and to examine their associations with dental neglect using an established scale. A descriptive survey of a random sample of 600 residents in the Dunedin South Electorate resulted in a 78.2 percent response rate (14 questionnaires were returned "address unknown"). Of the 458 respondents, nearly two-thirds were female, and almost all were European. Of the 385 dentate respondents (84.1 percent), 62.5 percent usually visited a dentist for a check-up, and 66.6 percent had visited a dentist within the previous year. The mean dental neglect score for dentate respondents was 12.4 (sd, 4.4), and was higher among younger people and those in the lowest occupational group. Compared with past national and regional oral health surveys, a higher proportion of respondents rated their oral health poorly, did not pay for their last dental treatment, and received their last dental care from a public dental service. Although the study was small in scale, and was conducted in an area in which there is access to low-cost dental care through the School of Dentistry, University of Otago, the findings are considered a useful contribution to the overall picture of the use of dental services by New Zealanders.