Survey on availability of dental services in Shanghai community health service centers and differences between urban and suburban areas / 中华全科医师杂志

ABSTRACT

O bjective To survey the availability of dental services in Shanghai community health service centers and the differences between urban and suburban areas. Methods:A questionnaire survey on dental service in Shanghai community health service centers were conducted from March 10 to 17, 2023. The availability of dental services and the differences among health service centers in central urban area, urban area and suburban area were analyzed.Results:A total of 249 community health service center participated in the survey and 249 effective questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 100.0%. Among 249 centers, 220 (88.4%) had set up dental clinics. The proportion of community health service centers with dental clinics in the urban areas, central urban areas and suburban areas is 95.0% (76/80), 98.2% (107/109) and 61.7% (37/60), respectively ( H=35.44, P<0.05). Among the 220 centers with dental clinics, the floor space of dental clinic was 40.00 (28.50, 73.24), 31.70 (24.40, 49.35) and 20.00 (16.75, 34.00) square meters in suburban areas, central urban areas, and suburban areas, respectively. There were significant differences in the inspection equipment including comprehensive dental chairs, X-ray panoramic machine, X-ray dental machine, dental implants, ultrasonic dental cleaning machine, portable dental chairs, light curing lamps, and enzyme cleaning machine among community health service centers in three types of city areas ( H=35.44, 8.32, 25.53, 7.46 20.95, 43.00, 23.22, 13.35, all P<0.05). Among 220 centers with dental services, all provided dental caries filling, 175 (79.55%) provided root canal treatment, 161 (73.18%) provided extraction of various impacted teeth, 104 (47.27%) provided minor maxillofacial surgery, 132 (60.00%) provided fixed denture restoration, and 139 (63.18%) provided removable local denture restoration. Only a few centers provided orthodontics and dental implant services, including 20 provided removable orthodontics (9.09%), 11 provided fixed orthodontics (5.00%), and 9 provided dental implants (4.09%). There were significant differences in provision of services for root canal treatment, gingival scaling, subgingival scraping, various types of impacted tooth extraction, maxillofacial surgery minor surgery, fixed denture restoration, removable local denture restoration, mobile correction, and oral implant restoration among centers in three types of city areas ( H=29.19, 51.73, 25.32, 31.93, 8.23, 25.98, 28.26, 10.46, 7.84, all P<0.05). There were total 511 dentists in 220 community health service centers, including 24(4.70%) with master degree, 53(10.37%) with associate senior professional titles. There were significant differences in number of dentists, those with undergraduate and below education, those with master degree, those with intermediate and below professional titles among centers in three types of city areas ( H=66.35, 50.33, 11.19, 42.17, all P<0.05). Conclusion:Community health service centers in Shanghai generally have basic capacity of dental service, but there are significant differences among the central urban areas, suburban areas, and suburban areas, indicating that it need to be further strengthened in terms of facilities, equipment, and talent team development in different city areas accordingly.