Barriers Affecting the Utilization of Dental Health Services among Community Dwelling Older Adults | ||||
| Alexandria Scientific Nursing Journal | ||||
| Volume 20, Issue 1, July 2018, Page 103-118 PDF (447.13 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Research articles | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/asalexu.2018.207750 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Authors | ||||
| Nadia Mohamed Saleh* 1; Neamit Ibrahim Elashri1; Heba Abd El-Aziz Mohamed1; Abdel-Hady El-Gilany2 | ||||
| 1Gerontological Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Mansoura University | ||||
| 2Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura | ||||
| 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 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: 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. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Dental; Health Services Utilization; Elderly; Barriers | ||||
|
Statistics Article View: 116 PDF Download: 1,120 |
||||
