Dental class 3 intercept clinic: a model for treating dental class 3 soldiers

Dental Fitness Classification (DFC) 3 indicates that a soldier has a dental condition that, if not treated, is expected to result in a dental emergency within 12 months. Forty-two percent of Army recruits have DFC 3 conditions as reported by the 2000 Tri-Service Center Recruit Study. Initial entry training schools allow minimal time for dental care. The Fort Hood Class Three Intercept Clinic (CTIC) was created to treat DFC 3 conditions prior to soldiers being assigned to their units. The purpose of this study was to evaluate CTIC's ability to make soldiers dentally deployable before joining their new units at Fort Hood, Texas.

A retrospective review of the CTIC daily sign-in logs for the period of January 1999 to May 2001 was used to identify DFC 3 soldiers. The data were analyzed to determine frequency of DFC 3 by rank, DFC after CTIC visits, distribution of treatment type needed to establish dental readiness, and to identify soldiers whose DFC 3 conditions were not treated. Additionally, for the 6 months between November 2000 and April 2001, all soldiers who remained a DFC 3 when released to their units were followed to assess how long it took for them to attain a DFC 1 or 2 status.

The retrospective review of the CTIC records identified 5,851 DFC 3 soldiers who in-processed to Fort Hood from January 1999 to May 2001. CTIC successfully converted 86.9% (N = 5,083) of the soldiers to DFC 1 or 2. Of a sample of 185 DFC 3 soldiers released to their units as a DFC 3, only 54% had converted to DFC 1 or 2, with 60.5 days being the mean days to convert.

Trainees have large demands for dental care with minimal time to seek treatment during Initial Entry Training. A CTIC, or hybrid, can provide the necessary emergent dental care to remove soldiers from DFC 3 prior to their being assigned to their first permanent duty station.