Barriers to utilization of dental health services in a group of disabled Norwegian adults

Abstract

A group of 496 disabled Norwegian adults were interviewed about their use of the dental health services. The purpose was to study which factors influenced their use of such services. Altogether, 53% of the study participants visited a dentist every year. Among the 335 dentate participants 72% visited the dentist annually, whereas 13% of those without their own teeth reported regular visits. A multiple classification analysis was applied to explain the variance in the use of dental services. Self-reported barriers to dental visits and the number of own teeth left were the strongest and equally important determinants (beta = 43) for regular utilization of dental services when all the participants were included in the analysis. Among the dentate participants self-reported barriers (beta = 55) explained most of the variance in dental visits.