Abstract
Aim: Dental services for adults are provided through user pays private practices and there is a substantial lack of insurance coverage for oral health care of older people in Romania. The aim of the study was to assess the age and gender distribution of patients requesting public dental emergency care provided by the Dental Office of Mures County Emergency H ospital i n Tirgu-Mures, R omania.
Methods: This retrospective study was based on the analysis of patient’s dental records. Included in the study were all patients who received treatment at the Dental Office of Mures County Emergency Hospital in Tirgu-Mures between February 2012 and September 2016. This is the single 24-hour non- stop dental office in Mures County where anybody may request free dental services, even if it is not an emergency. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tirgu-Mures. Data were analysed using SPSS v 17 for Windows descriptive statistics. Student t-test was used and the significance level was set at p<0.05.
Results: During the period under investigation, a total of 31,122 patients were treated in the emergency dental office. Compared to the first year of the service, the proportion of emergency dental care visits was significantly higher in all other years (p<0.05). Of the total number of 25,012 adult emergency patients 2,458 (9.4%) were aged 60 years or over, significantly more males 1,392 (56.6%) than females 1,066 (43.3%) presented.
Conclusions: The results revealed that adults were more likely to visit the public dental emergency office and to be male among 60 years and over in this study population. The high demand for emergency dental services reflects that dental care in user pays private practices is unaffordable to these patients and also there is a lack of public dental care for adults in Tirgu-Mures, Romania.
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