Some problems of dental treatment. Part 2. Treatment avoidance: some differences between regular and irregular...

Analysis of questionnaire data obtained from 54 irregular patients and 56 regular patients attending the Dental Department of the Lower Hutt Hospital and private practices in Lower Hutt and Wellington, New Zealand indicates that irregular patients are more anxious about dental treatment, value natural teeth less and find dental treatment more unpleasant than do regular patients. These and other survey findings on dental service utilization and dental anxiety suggest that the dental profession has a good deal of control over the way the public utilizes dental services. Most international surveys have found that less than 60 per cent of the population visits the dentist regularly, so there appears to be the potential for a substantial increase in regular use of dental services by the public. But, it is also likely that the longer an individual is remiss in regular dental care and the more teeth are lost, the more difficult conversion to regular visits will be.