An analysis of the attitudes of dental patients attending general dental practice in Galway
Loading...
Files
Published Version
Date
2013-08
Authors
Hayes, Martina
Burke, Francis M.
McKenna, Gerald
Madden, Jamie M.
Cronin, Michael
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Irish Dental Association
Published Version
Abstract
Aim: To describe the patterns of dental attendance and attitudes towards tooth loss of general dental practice patients in Galway. Objectives: 1. To determine the pattern of adult dental attendance in general practices in Galway; and, 2. To examine the oral health attitudes of these patients. Method: Questionnaires were distributed to 311 consecutive adult patients in the waiting rooms of ten general dental practices in Galway, which were randomly selected from the telephone directory. Results: A total of 254 of the 311 questionnaires distributed were fully completed, returned and included in the results, giving a response rate of 81.7%. A total of 59% of dentate participants attended their dentist for annual or biannual examinations compared to 23% of edentate patients. Some 10.5% of medical card holders and 0.5% of non-medical card holders were edentulous. Conclusions: The data from the survey indicated that medical card holders in Galway were more likely to be edentulous than nonmedical card holders. Edentate patients were less likely to be regular dental attenders than dentate patients.
Description
Keywords
Dental attendance , Oral health attitudes , Tooth loss , General dental practice
Citation
Hayes M., Burke F. M., McKenna G., Madden J. and Cronin M. (2013) 'An analysis of the attitudes of dental patients attending general dental practice in Galway', Journal of The Irish Dental Association, 59(4), pp. 179-182