Association between subjective oral health and regularity of service use.

The aim was to evaluate the predictive power of two different measures of subjective oral health in relation to regularity of use of oral health-care services. The nationally representative data were collected as part of the Health 2000 Survey on Finnish adults, 30+ yr of age (n=4926). Subjective oral health and regularity of using of oral health-care services were measured using single questions and oral health-related quality of life was measured using the 14-item Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) questionnaire. Those reporting poor oral health or higher impacts in the OHIP-14 were more likely to be irregular users of oral health-care services. Further research is needed to investigate more precisely the applicability of these measures in different settings of oral health-care provision.