Barriers Affecting the Utilization of Dental Health Services among Community Dwelling Older Adults (original) (raw)

2018, Alexandria Scientific Nursing Journal

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 specialized medical hospital, Mansoura University and general hospital, Ministry of Health. 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: Pred...

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