Indigenous children and receipt of hospital dental care in Australia

Objective. The aim of this study was to investigate dental procedures received under hospital general anaesthetic by indigenous and non-indigenous Australian children in 2002-2003. Methods. Separation data from 1297 public and private hospitals were obtained from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare National Hospital Morbidity Database for 2002-2003. The dependant variable was the admission rate of children receiving four categories of dental care (i.e. extraction, pulpal, restoration or other). The explanatory variables included sex, age group, indigenous status and location (i.e. major city, regional or remote). Rates were calculated using estimated resident population counts. Results. The sample included 24 874 children aged from 2 to 14 years. Some 4.3% were indigenous (n=1062). Admission rates for indigenous and non-indigenous children were similar, with indigenous males having 1.2 times the admission rate of indigenous females (P<0.05). Indigenous children aged <5 years had 1.4 times the admission rate of similarly aged non-indigenous children (P<0.001) and 5.0 times the admission rate of 10-14-year-old indigenous children (P<0.001). Remote-living indigenous children had 1.5 times the admission rate of their counterparts in major cities or regional areas (P<0.001), and 1.4 times the admission rate of remote-living non-indigenous children (P<0.01). The extraction rate of indigenous males was 1.3 times that of non-indigenous males (P<0.01), and 1.2 times that of indigenous females (P<0.05). Pre-school indigenous children had 2.2 times the extraction rate of similarly aged non-indigenous children (P<0.001), and 5.3 times that of indigenous 10-14-year-olds (P<0.001). The extraction rate of remotely located indigenous children was 1.5 times that of indigenous children in major cities (P<0.01), and 1.8 times that of remote-living non-indigenous children (P<0.001). Conclusions. In certain strata-particularly males, the very young and those in remote locations - indigenous children experienced higher rates of extractions than non-indigenous children when undergoing care in a hospital dental general anaesthetic setting.