Barriers to the Utilization of Dental Services in Udaipur, India

OBJECTIVE Regular home care and yearly dental check-ups are the best means of dental care. In spite of the information on dental care, many people fail to take these precautions. The objective of this study was to determine the barriers in regular dental care and home care and to assess their association with age, sex, education and income. MATERIALS AND METHODS A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 427 randomly selected individuals, 248 males and 179 females. Data were collected by a pre-tested, self-administered 14 question questionnaire. The answer "very much" was scored as one, "to some degree" as two and "not at all" as three. The data was described and analyzed by frequency distribution and chi square test with P<0.05 level of significance. Logistic regression was used to investigate the association between dental visits with age, sex and education. Correlation between income and dental visits was determined by Spearman's correlation coefficient. RESULTS The male group had more dental visits (P>0.05), but females experienced higher dental fear (P<0.001). The younger age group had more visits within one year in comparison to the older. Increase in education, decreases the barriers for regular dental care. Income had a significantly negative correlation with dental visit (P=0.02). CONCLUSION Our findings suggest that males believed in having regular dental care. Cost of the treatment also affected the dental visits, but the distance they had to travel to get the dental treatment was not much significant. Above all, felt need had a major impact on the dental visits.