Barriers Affecting The Utilization Of Dental Health Services Among Older Adults

Abstract

Adequate access to oral health care services becomes essential, as it provides opportunities for health promotion, disease prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of oral diseases. Objective: Assess the barriers affecting the utilization of dental health services among community dwelling older adults. Setting: The geriatric outpatient clinics of Makkah hospital. Subjects: 612 elderly persons aged 60 years and above. Tools: Older Adults' Socio-demgraphic and Clinical Data Structured Interview Schedule, Older Adults' Barriers to dental care utilization Structured Interview Schedule, Katz and Akpom Scale and Oral Health Assessment Tool (OHAT). Results: The most frequent barriers reported by the elders are high cost of dental services, lack of awareness about the importance of dental checkup, fear of dental procedure, difficult transportation and long distance, and bad past experience. Conclusion: Predictors of dental health visits among elderly were basic and secondary education, enough income, elderly suffering from hypertension, elderly free from liver diseases and elderly with healthy oral status. Recommendations: Design oral health educational program for community dwelling older adults about the importance of oral health routine checkup and the available community dental health services.