J Dent Hyg Sci.  2019 Sep;19(3):147-153. 10.17135/jdhs.2019.19.3.147.

Comparison of Factors Affecting Perceived and Objective Dental Needs

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Dental Hygiene, Daejeon Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 35408, Korea. hsun0405@naver.com
  • 2Department of Dental Hygiene, Suwon Science College, Hwaseong 18516, Korea.

Abstract

BACKGROUND
With increased interest in oral health, several efforts have been made to improve oral health conditions. To achieve this, needs for oral health must be precisely determined and accurately measured. Therefore, factors influencing both objective unmet dental needs, which were determined by experts, and perceived unmet dental needs, which were determined by patients, were examined in this study.
METHODS
Responses of 17,735 respondents aged greater than 19 years from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey collected using the fifth (2010~2012) rotation sample survey were analyzed. Based on the information collected from the survey and dental examination, we determined the associations between the independent (sex and socioeconomic level) and dependent variables using a chi-squared test. Moreover, ordinal logistic regression analyses on multiple categorical values were performed using perceived and objective dental needs as the dependent variables.
RESULTS
Generally, factors influencing both perceived and objective dental needs were similar. These included sex, household income, educational level, private insurance, and subjective oral health status. However, the high-income groups had lesser perceived and objective dental needs compared to the low-income groups. Furthermore, factors such as sex, educational level, and marital status had different influence on both needs.
CONCLUSION
Generally, factors that affect perceived and objective dental needs were similar. To minimize unmet dental needs, factors influencing both perceived and objective dental needs should be examined for a broad dental insurance coverage, and efforts to prevent oral diseases are also required.

Keyword

Objective needs; Oral health; Perceived needs; Unmet needs

MeSH Terms

Family Characteristics
Humans
Insurance
Insurance, Dental
Logistic Models
Marital Status
Nutrition Surveys
Oral Health
Surveys and Questionnaires
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