Utilisation of dental services for people with special health care needs in Australia
- PDF / 778,260 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 111 Downloads / 205 Views
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Utilisation of dental services for people with special health care needs in Australia Mathew Albert Wei Ting Lim1,2,3* , Sharon Andrea Corinne Liberali4,5 and Gelsomina Lucia Borromeo1
Abstract Background: To explore the profile of patients and treatment delivered at specialist referral centres for individuals with special needs. Methods: A cross-sectional audit was conducted of the health records of all patients with appointments at two of Australia’s largest referral centres for patients with special needs, the Integrated Special Needs Department at the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne and the Special Needs Unit at the Adelaide Dental Hospital, for the month of August 2015. Results: The profile of patients treated at these specialist units demonstrates the diversity of individuals with additional health care needs that general dentists feel require specialised oral health care. The Adelaide-based clinic had a greater proportion of complex medical patients in comparison to those treated in Melbourne who were more likely to have a disability or psychiatric condition and were less likely to be able to self-consent for treatment. Interestingly, despite similar workforce personnel numbers, there were approximately twice as many appointments at the Special Needs Unit in Adelaide than the Integrated Special Needs Department in Melbourne during the study period which may have reflected differences in workforce composition with a greater use of dental auxiliaries at the Adelaide clinic. Conclusions: The results of this study provide an initial profile of patients with special needs referred for specialist care in Australia. However, the differences in patient profiles between the two units require further investigation into the possible influence of service provision models and barriers to access of care for individuals with special needs and to ensure equitable access to health care. Keywords: Delivery of health care, Dental care for aged, Dental care for chronically ill, Dental care for disabled, Health services accessibility Background Individuals with special needs, ranging from those with disabilities to those with complex health issues, commonly report experiencing problems with accessing routine dental care [1–3]. Worryingly, despite increasing advocacy for these patient groups, improvements to university training programs, and increasing information about the links between oral and systemic health, these individuals continue to experience problems with *Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Melbourne Dental School, University of Melbourne, Carlton, Australia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
accessing dental care largely due to the reluctance of many oral health professionals to treat them [2, 4, 5]. In order to address this ongoing issue, Australia and New Zealand were amongst the first countries to establish special needs dentistry as a registrable dental specialty and, in doing so, recognise the growing group of individuals within
Data Loading...
