Perceived unmet need for oral treatment among a national population of HIV-positive medical patients: Social and clinical correlates

Objectives. This study examines social, behavioral, and clinical correlates of perceived unmet need for oral health care for people with HIV infection , Methods. Baseline in-person interviews with 2864 individuals were conducted with the HIV Cast and Services Utilization Study cohort, a nationally repr esentative probability sample of HIV-infected persons in medical care. Biva riate and logistic regression analyses were conducted with unmet need in th e last 6 months as the dependent variable and demographic, social, behavior al, and disease characteristics as independent variables. Results. We estimate that 19.3% of HIV-infected medical patients (n = 44550 ) had a perceived unmet need for dental care in the last 6 months. The odds of having unmet dental needs were highest for those on Medicaid in states without dental benefits (odds ratio [OR] = 2.21), for others with no dental insurance (OR = 2.26), for those with incomes under $5000 (OR = 2.20), and for those with less than a high school education (OR = 1.83). Low CD4 coun t was not significant. Conclusions. Perceived unmet need was related more to social and economic f actors than to stage of infection. An expansion of dental benefits for thos e on Medicaid might reduce unmet need for dental care.