Health economic analyses of domiciliary dental care and care at fixed clinics for elderly nursing home residents in Sweden.

OBJECTIVES: Dental care for elderly nursing home residents is traditionally provided at fixed dental clinics, but domiciliary dental care is an emerging alternative. Longer life expectancy accompanied with increased morbidity, and hospitalisation or dependence on the care of others will contribute to a risk for rapid deterioration of oral health so alternative methods for delivering oral health care to vulnerable individuals for whom access to fixed dental clinics is an obstacle should be considered. The aim was to analyse health economic consequences of domiciliary dental care for elderly nursing home residents in Sweden, compared to dentistry at a fixed clinic. METHODS: A review of relevant literature was undertaken complemented by interviews with nursing home staff, officials at county councils, and academic experts in geriatric dentistry. Domiciliary dental care and fixed clinic care were compared in cost analyses and cost-effectiveness analyses. RESULTS: The mean societal cost of domiciliary dental care for elderly nursing home residents was lower than dental care at a fixed clinic, and it was also considered cost-effective. Lower cost of dental care at a fixed dental clinic was only achieved in a scenario where dental care could not be completed in a domiciliary setting. CONCLUSIONS: Domiciliary dental care for elderly nursing home residents has a lower societal cost and is cost-effective compared to dental care at fixed clinics. To meet current and predicted need for oral health care in the ageing population alternative methods to deliver dental care should be available.

Long-term healthy lifestyle patterns and tooth loss studied in a Swedish cohort of middle-aged and older people.

UNLABELLED: The promotion of a healthy lifestyle has become an issue of public health importance in the context of ageing populations and increasing prevalence of chronic diseases. OBJECTIVE: (i) To estimate changes in use of fluoridated tooth paste, use of tooth picks, smoking and alcohol consumption and (ii) to examine whether experience with incident or prevalent tooth loss predict healthy lifestyle transitions from age 50 to 70. METHOD: In 1992, 6346 individuals born in 1942 agreed to participate in a prospective cohort study and 3585 completed follow-up questionnaires in 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2012. Statistical analyses were conducted by chi-square statistics, Cochran's Q and logistic regression. RESULTS: In total, 15.7% and 74.0% reported incident (tooth loss only in 2012) and prevalent tooth loss (tooth loss in 1992 and 2012). Significant differences occurred between the 1992 and 2012 prevalence of using toothpicks (from 48.3% to 69.1%), smoking (from 26.9% to 10.1%) and alcohol consumption (from 41.5% to 50.5%), 29% and 15.6% increased use of toothpicks and alcohol consumption, whereas 15.5% stopped daily smoking. Increased use of fluoridated tooth paste, smoking cessation and failure to increase use of toothpicks was associated with prevalent tooth loss between age 50 and 70. CONCLUSION: This study revealed positive and negative trends in oral health behaviours over a 20-year period in persons aged 50 at baseline. Mixed support was obtained for the assumption that oral health promoting lifestyle transitions follow experience with tooth loss. Older people with tooth loss experience could benefit from targeted counselling aimed at coping with oral diseases.

Dental status and self-assessed chewing ability in 70- and 80-year-old subjects in Sweden.

The objective was to compare two cohorts of elderly people, 70 and 80 years old, with respect to dental status and self-assessed chewing ability. The hypotheses were as follows: (i) dental status is associated with self-assessed chewing ability; (ii) chewing ability is poorer among the 80- than the 70-year-old subjects. Identical questionnaires were in 2012 sent to all subjects born in 1942 and 1932, living in two Swedish counties. The response rate was 70.1% resulting in samples of 5697 70- and 2922 80-year-old subjects. Answers to questions on self-assessed chewing ability, dental status and some other factors have been analysed. Dental status varied but was in general good; 72% of the 70- and 60% of the 80-year-old subjects reported that they had all or only few missing teeth. Rate of edentulism was 3% and 7%, respectively. Removable partial dentures were reported by 6% and 10%, respectively, implant treatment by 13% in both cohorts. Self-assessed chewing ability was mostly good and correlated with the number of teeth (Spearman rho = 0.46). A majority of the edentulous subjects assessed their chewing ability as very or fairly good. Logistic regression showed that self-assessed chewing ability was significantly associated with a number of dental variables but also with general health. In conclusion, dental status was relatively good at both ages but somewhat poorer in the older cohort. Dental status, some other dental variables and being healthy were in both age groups significantly associated with self-assessed chewing ability.

Can caries in the primary dentition be used to predict caries in the permanent dentition? An analysis of longitudinal individual data from 3-19 years of age in Sweden.

AIM: To investigate if active caries disease in the primary dentition can be used as a long-term predictor for active caries disease in the permanent dentition. STUDY DESIGN: Population-based longitudinal register study. METHODS: This study included all those born in 1987 living in Örebro county who came to the clinic for an examination at all three measuring points in 1990, 1993 and 2006 (n = 1,985, panel). The panel consisted of 77.3% of the baseline group (1990) and represented 60.0% of the three-year-olds in the population in 1990. Caries data were compared at the individual level and were broken down into the components of decayed, filled primary teeth (dft) and decayed surfaces (ds) (at three years and six years) and decayed filled permanent teeth (DFT) and decayed surfaces (DS) (at 19 years). DFT (dft) was used as an indicator of caries experience and DS (ds) as an indicator of active caries disease RESULTS: There was a poor correlation between active caries disease at six years of age and active caries disease at 19 years of age. A stronger correlation could be measured between dental caries experience at six years of age (primary dentition) and caries experience at 19 years of age. STATISTICS: Bivariate analyses were conducted by cross-tabulation and Chi-squared statistics. Multivariate analyses were conducted using binary multiple logistic regression with categorical data. CONCLUSIONS: The correlations between active caries disease in the primary dentition and active caries disease at 19 years of age were very low on an individual level. Using early caries disease as a predictive test for later caries disease showed low sensitivity and low specificity over a long time period.

Understanding politics? Some lessons from Swedish dentistry.

BACKGROUND: Medical and dental care are dependent on political settings for legislation and financing. The professionals in these organisations need to understand the political logic that shapes the environment of their organisation. A description of Swedish dentistry and recent legislation reports from commissions and bills to parliament from 1997 are analysed. AIM: The aims are to describe changes in the environment for dentistry in Sweden from 1998, to analyse the underlying political logic, and to point to some lessons to be learned. METHOD: The description is analysed using theories from strategic management and from decision-making. RESULTS: The objectives changed from a formal emphasis on prevention to insurance against high cost for the patient. Some ideas keep recurring in the political debates even if scientific logics contradict them. CONCLUSIONS: Health care system research methods and the "garbage can" model of decision-making can be used to describe and to gain a better understanding of the politically governed environment. Some political issues keep recurring in spite of earlier rational rejections. A better understanding of the political logic that forms the environment for an organisation is needed for a successful adaptation to that environment.

Validation methodology in publications describing epidemiological registration methods of dental caries: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: The aim was to describe and systematically review the methodology and reporting of validation in publications describing epidemiological registration methods for dental caries. BASIC RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: Literature searches were conducted in six scientific databases. All publications fulfilling the predetermined inclusion criteria were assessed for methodology and reporting of validation using a checklist including items described previously as well as new items. The frequency of endorsement of the assessed items was analysed. Moreover, the type and strength of evidence, was evaluated. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Reporting of predetermined items relating to methodology of validation and the frequency of endorsement of the assessed items were of primary interest. RESULTS: Initially 588 publications were located. 74 eligible publications were obtained, 23 of which fulfilled the inclusion criteria and remained throughout the analyses. A majority of the studies reported the methodology of validation. The reported methodology of validation was generally inadequate, according to the recommendations of evidence-based medicine. The frequencies of reporting the assessed items (frequencies of endorsement) ranged from four to 84 per cent. A majority of the publications contributed to a low strength of evidence. CONCLUSION: There seems to be a need to improve the methodology and the reporting of validation in publications describing professionally registered caries epidemiology. Four of the items assessed in this study are potentially discriminative for quality assessments of reported validation.

Emergency dental service is still needed--also for regular attenders within a comprehensive insurance system.

The aim of this study was to describe types of, and reasons for, emergency visits for regular dental attenders in the Public Dental Health Services (PDHS). The study was based on data from 895 consecutive emergency episodes collected from four PDHS clinics in the county of Ostergötland, Sweden, during a six-month period in 1994/95. Forty per cent of the dental emergency visits included children and adolescents. The most common reasons for attending were material fractures (29%), tooth fractures (19%), pain (19%) and dental traumas (12%). Seventy-three per cent of all patients and 60% of children and adolescents knew the next scheduled revision appointment. In 85% of the cases care-givers and patients were in agreement regarding the urgency of the visit. The care-givers considered 14% of the visits non-urgent, only in 1% they felt that the patient should have come earlier. The results show that emergency visits are common among regular dental care patients, but are dominated nowadays more by answering patients' questions and less by pain relief. Via systematic follow-ups and better learning from the experiences of those who seek emergency dental care, routines could be further developed and considerable benefits achieved concerning both perceived service quality and cost-effectiveness.