Reasons for seeking dental care among adults at an academic dental centre and the associated factors

One of the roles expected of dental personnel is to promote dental seeking behaviour to the public. It is to ensure that adults maintain an optimum number of teeth for overall health and quality of life by enabling them to eat, speak and socialise without pain, discomfort or embarrassment. The objective of this study was to determine the reasons for seeking dental care and the factors that influence this decision among adult patients. This was a retrospective study of clinical records among patients of 18 years old and above who attended Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) Dental Polyclinic, an academic dental centre, for the first time from January 2015 to December 2016. Socio-demographic data on age, gender and occupation as well as the reason for the visit were retrieved from the clinical records. Analysis of data was conducted using SPSS software version 21.0 and the p-value was set at p<0.05. A total of 344 patient clinical records were retrieved. The most common reasons for the visit was dental check-up (18.6%), followed by scaling (15.7%) and toothache (14.2%). The reasons for the visit was further categorised into curative (63%) and preventive dental care (37%). A significant association was found between the reason of seeking dental care with age (p<0.001) and gender (p=0.030). This study indicated a tendency for young adults and female patients seeking preventive dental care. The findings of this study would provide the input in designing the preventive oral health programmes and activities.