Self-Initiated Reasons for Dental Service Use and Received Dental Care Interventions of Adult and Elderly Patients Attending a District Hospital in Southern Thailand

Abstract

A retrospective study in a group of 791 dental patients was undertaken to primarily describe characteristics of self-initiated reasons for dental service use and correspondingly received dental care interventions in this group of adult and elderly patients who attended a rural public hospital in Southern Thailand. Orientation of dental service provided by this rural public hospital was also aimed to be identified. Data were collected from hospital computer database and re-validated with patient general records and joint dental treatment records. Descriptive statistics were used for general description. Very low percentage of preventive reasons expressed in this group of patients was very low (3.7%). The reasons related to oral surgery, a destructive kind of dental treatment, were the most common reasons expressed by 340 patients (43%). The second and third most common reasons were the ones related to dental coronal pathoses (19.2%) and periodontal diseases (18.6%). The three most common dental care interventions received by patients who expressed self-initiated reasons were oral surgical treatments (50.7%), operative treatment (20.4%), and periodontal treatment (16.3%). It should be stressed that about half of the patients ended up receiving oral surgical treatments which were rather destructive and resulted mostly in loss of teeth. It was evident that the existing status of dental service provision in that rural public hospital was curative in orientation.