Dental Utilization by Pediatric Patients Attending the 2015 Dental Home Day

Abstract

Purpose: To describe dental care utilization of patients who participated at the Dental Home Day (DHD) in 2015. Additionally, to determine if, among participants receiving free dental care for one year, insurance type is associated with dental care utilization. Methods: Demographics, utilization of dental care, and treatment performed were collected from 149 participants who were followed for 15 months. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all variables of interest stratified by insurance type. Bivariate associations between insurance type and specific variables were tested using Chi-square tests, Fisher’s Exact tests, and one-way ANOVA. Unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression (binary outcomes) and Poisson regression (count outcomes) were used to test for associations between various outcomes and predictors of interest. The significance level was set to α = 0.05. Results: Overall utilization for all participants was 81.2%. Insurance type is significantly associated with overall utilization after adjusting for gender, age, and DFT (p = 0.048). Overall utilization is significantly higher in a privately insured participant compared to an uninsured participant after adjustment (OR = 6.60, 95% CI = (1.43, 30.33), p = 0.015). Conclusion: Participants utilized care at a higher rate than would be expected based on national data. Individuals with private insurance had higher overall utilization. This is strongly attributed to the significantly higher rate of recall visits. This study shows there may be an association with insurance type and rate at which they attend recalls in the setting of free dental care.