Prevalence of and factors associated with dental service utilization among early elderly in Lithuania

Background There is no recent information about dental service utilization (DSU) among elderly in Lithuania. We examined DSU and its associated factors in Lithuanian early elderly based on the Andersen’s behavioural model. Methods The cross-sectional study conducted in 2017–2019 included a nationally representative stratified sample of 370 Lithuanian early elderly aged 65–74 years (response rate of 54.5%). Information on predisposing factors (age, sex, nationality and education), enabling factor (residence), need-based factors (status of teeth, oral pain or discomfort, and dry mouth), general health, personal health practices and perceived stress was obtained from a structured, self-administered questionnaire. Clinically-assessed need-based factors included number of missing teeth and dental treatment need. Multivariable Poisson regression with robust variance estimates was used. Results A total of 239 study participants (64.6%) reported a dental visit during the last year and 338 (91.4%) needed dental treatments. A higher level of education (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] = 1.21, 95% confidence interval [CI]:1.04–1.40), pain or discomfort in teeth/mouth (aPR = 1.35, 95%CI: 1.13–1.62) and lower number of missing teeth (aPR = 0.99, 95%CI: 0.98–1.00) were associated with DSU. Conclusions Even though majority of early elderly needed dental treatments, only two-thirds visited a dentist during the last year. Predisposing and need-based factors were significant predictors of having a dental visit in the last year. A national oral health program for Lithuanian elderly with the focus on regular preventive dental check-ups is needed. More studies, both quantitative and qualitative, are warranted to investigate in depth the barriers for DSU among elderly in Lithuania.

Living the Challenges of a Pandemic Through the Succour and Strength of Science

Access to dental care in Saudi Arabia is a challenge due to the lack of proper distribution of the dental workforce. Teledentistry is the field of dentistry that helps to receive and provide dental service remotely using digital platforms. It can facilitate access to dental care, especially in underserved regions. The implication of teledentistry needs to address the concerns of dental professionals to ensure effective teledentistry application in dental practice. This review aimed to explore the literature about the perception, awareness, and knowledge of dental professionals about teledentistry in Saudi Arabia. Peer-reviewed literature was searched in databases including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar with no time limits using the keywords: “Teledentistry”, “Dental Telemedicine”, “Saudi Arabia”, “Perception”, “Knowledge”, “Awareness”. We identified 7 relevant studies. All of them were after the breakthrough of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two studies targeted all dental professionals while another two studies investigated the dentists. Undergraduate dental students were investigated by one study as well as postgraduates. One study focused on both undergraduate and postgraduate dental students. Our review found that the perception, knowledge, awareness, and attitude of Saudi dental professionals are positive. Many studies pointed out that the dental professionals in Saudi Arabia are practicing teledentistry and are open to learn and get more knowledge about it. Teledentistry got more attention during the post-COVID19 time by Saudi dental professionals. Structured and sustainable models and education pogroms are recommended to utilize the benefits of teledentistry in Saudi Arabia.

Assessment of the quality of care according to parents and - or guardians, pediatric dentistry service, Hospital Pediatrico del Niño Jesus, Cordoba, Argentina

Objective: To evaluate the quality of care perceived by parents or guardians of children seen in the pediatric dentistry service of the HPNJ in the city of Córdoba, 2019.Methods: The SERVPERF survey was applied to a sample of 427, calculated by random sampling. The responses were processed in Infostat professional version 2018. The means of the 22 questions of the questionnaire were calculated, the five quality dimensions were analyzed in detail and the responses of the PSF (population without fissure) and PCF (population with fissure) groups were compared.Results: The dimensions with the highest level of satisfaction were Reliability and Empathy and the dimensions with the lowest satisfaction were Tangibility and Responsivenessin both groups, with higher perceived quality in the PCF group in the individual analysis and in overall satisfaction.Conclusions: The parents and/or guardians surveyed expressed positive assessments of the quality of the dental service received. The best valued dimensions were Reliability and Empathy and the least rated were Tangibility and Responsiveness. Overall satisfaction was related to sex, age, educational level and social coverage

Assessing the reliability of automatic sentiment analysis tools on rating the sentiment of reviews of NHS dental practices in England

Background Online reviews may act as a rich source of data to assess the quality of dental practices. Assessing the content and sentiment of reviews on a large scale is time consuming and expensive. Automation of the process of assigning sentiment to big data samples of reviews may allow for reviews to be used as Patient Reported Experience Measures for primary care dentistry. Aim To assess the reliability of three different online sentiment analysis tools (Amazon Comprehend DetectSentiment API (ACDAPI), Google and Monkeylearn) at assessing the sentiment of reviews of dental practices working on National Health Service contracts in the United Kingdom. Methods A Python 3 script was used to mine 15800 reviews from 4803 unique dental practices on the NHS.uk websites between April 2018 –March 2019. A random sample of 270 reviews were rated by the three sentiment analysis tools. These reviews were rated by 3 blinded independent human reviewers and a pooled sentiment score was assigned. Kappa statistics and polychoric evalutaiton were used to assess the level of agreement. Disagreements between the automated and human reviewers were qualitatively assessed. Results There was good agreement between the sentiment assigned to reviews by the human reviews and ACDAPI (k = 0.660). The Google (k = 0.706) and Monkeylearn (k = 0.728) showed slightly better agreement at the expense of usability on a massive dataset. There were 33 disagreements in rating between ACDAPI and human reviewers, of which n = 16 were due to syntax errors, n = 10 were due to misappropriation of the strength of conflicting emotions and n = 7 were due to a lack of overtly emotive language in the text. Conclusions There is good agreement between the sentiment of an online review assigned by a group of humans and by cloud-based sentiment analysis. This may allow the use of automated sentiment analysis for quality assessment of dental service provision in the NHS.

Organization of the state dental service in Ukraine: historiographical analysis

Background. The historical chronology of the creation of the state system of dental care organization in Ukraine reveals the first steps of formation and further development of dentistry as an integral part of scientific and clinical medicine. In 1920, a fundamentally new organizational and economic model of dental care with state funding was introduced in Ukraine, which provided for the coverage of the entire population of the country. The long history is the best basis for the analysis of the passed evolutionary way of dental care development in Ukraine. Objective: to study the historiography of dentistry formation as an independent discipline of scientific and clinical medicine, organization of the state dental service in Ukraine based on the results of research of archival materials of normative-legal documents. Materials and methods. Materials of the main archival documents of the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv for 1919–1920 were studied and analyzed. The materials of the study were the main normative-legal documents regulating dental care: Order of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR No. 3 dated April 5, 1920 “On the organization of dental sections at the provincial health departments”; Order of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR No. 4 dated April 10, 1920 “On the organization of state dental care”; instructions to paragraph 2 of the Order of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR No. 4 dated April 10, 1920 “On state dental care”; instruction “On the issues of the decision of dentistry in state outpatient clinics” approved by the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR on April 13, 1920; “Plan for the organization of dental care provision to the population of Ukraine” approved by the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR on June 26, 1920. The research methods were the historical one, which involves the study of the creation, formation and development of objects in chronological order; and historical-critical one, which involves the extraction of reliable information from historical sources, the reconstruction of historical facts in order to study the history of events. Results. On the basis of archival materials of normative-legal documents of the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv, a historical-critical analysis of the creation of the state system of dental service organization in Ukraine for 1919–1920 was conducted. The orders, directives and instructions approved by People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukraine reveal the first steps in building and implementing a new organizational and economic model of dental care. The created healthcare system was based on the provision of social medical dental care by the state to every citizen of Ukraine. Conclusions. Historiographical analysis of normative-legal documents reveals the formation of dentistry as an integral part of highly qualified medical care. The introduced new organizational and economic model of providing social dental care to the population of Ukraine was based on the principles of gratuitousness, availability, proficiency, integration and prevention of dental diseases. Dental care for the population of Ukraine included the construction of a network system of state outpatient clinics, dental departments as a part of multidisciplinary clinics, dental departments and offices in hospitals, which were subordinated to the provincial odontological subdepartments and the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR. The new model of state regulation was grounded on the planning and control of the provision of social dental care on the basis of state funding. The main tasks of the created healthcare system were the introduction of organizational measures aimed at mass coverage of free dental care for the citizens of Ukraine. An important area of dental care was the creation of school offices for the prevention of dental di-seases of the oral cavity in organized children’s groups.

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF PATIENTS SERVED IN A PUBLIC DENTAL SERVICE FOR PATIENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS IN BELÉM

Objective: In view of the scarcity of research aimed at patients with special needs in our region, this study aims to identify the pathologies, such as age, gender, place of origin and prevalence of caries and periodontal disease in patients enrolled in a public dental service in Belém aimed at the care of people with special needs. Method: Retrospective cross-sectional study, where the data collected in the medical records of the patients enrolled in SIDOPE-UFPA were analyzed. Results: At the end of the data collection, 219 medical records of patients eligible to participate in the study were divided into groups, such as Behavioral Disorder (27.85%), Non-Progressive Brain Encephalopathy (10.5%), Syndromes and malformations (8.7%), Intellective deficit (7.76%), among others. The prevalence of caries was 71.23% and Periodontal Disease was 23.7%; (61.6%) and Belém (62.5%) were the most prevalent place of origin. Conclusion: According to the research, most patients still need treatment, due to the high caries index found, and mainly preventive measures so that these numbers can be reduced in the future. It was also observed the complexity and variety of diseases in the patients enrolled, and the incidence of rare syndromes that should and should be studied more specifically, not only by dentistry, but also by professionals from other areas, emphasizing the importance of care multiprofessional approach to these patients.

Disparities in Dental Service Use Among Adult Populations in the United States

This paper aimed to examine disparities of dental service utilization for younger (20-49), middle-aged (50-64), and older adults (65+), among Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, American Indians or Alaska Natives (AIAN), and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders (NHOPI). Weighted logistic regression models were conducted to analyze nine waves of data (2002-2018) from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Results show that the all-wave average prevalence was 71% and racial/ethnic disparities increased with age. Black older adults had the lowest level of dental service utilization (65%), comparing to the two highest groups: White older adults (79%) and Asian older adults (76%). The younger adult populations had low prevalences with the lowest among Asians (65%). The AIAN and NHOPI all age groups tended to have average or below average prevalences. Health policy, federal funding, and community-based programs should address needs of dental service utilization for racial/ethnic minorities including Blacks, AIANs, and NHOPIs.