DETERMINANTS OF DENTAL-CARE USE IN DENTATE ADULTS - 6-MONTHLY USE DURING A 24-MONTH PERIOD IN THE FLORIDA DENTAL-CARE STUDY

The objective of this study is to describe for a diverse sample of den tate adults the incidence of dental care use and predisposing, enablin g, and need correlates of that use. The Florida Dental Care Study (FDC S) is a prospective longitudinal cohort study of persons who at baseli ne had at least one natural tooth, were 45 years or older, and who res ided in north Florida, U.S.A. An in-person interview and clinical dent al examination were conducted at baseline and 24 months after baseline , with 6-monthly telephone interviews between those times. Seventy-sev en percent of subjects reported one or more dental visits during the 2 4 months of follow-up. Six-monthly use ranged from 46% to 55%. Inciden t perceived need for care and certain incident self-reported oral sign s and symptoms were strongly predictive of incident dental care use. D ecrements in oral functional limitation, oral disadvantage, and self-r ated oral health were predictive of less care bivariately, but were no t salient in a multivariate model, with two notable exceptions: two me asures related to esthetics.The conclusions are that certain measures of need (perceived need and specific self reported signs and symptoms) were important predictors of incident dental care. However, persons w ith need as determined by direct clinical examination and persons with need as determined by self-reported decrements in the more distal mea sures of oral health (oral functional limitation, oral disadvantage, a nd self-rated oral health) were actually less likely to seek dental ca re. The salience of esthetics in predicting use is consistent with cro ss-sectional findings that dental esthetic cues are important to oral ''health''. Typical approach to care, dental attitudes, ability to pay for care, race, and sex were also important for understanding inciden t dental care use, (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.