Diaz Marissa Andréah, Wood Elizabeth Geneva, Yuan Weili, Gimm Gilbert, Kennedy Jae
Department of Community and Behavioral Health, Washington State University College of Medicine, Community and Behavioral Health, 412 E Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA, 99202, USA.
Department of Health Administration and Policy, College of Public Health, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, MS-1-J3, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA.
Disabil Health J. 2025 Apr 2:101835. doi: 10.1016/j.dhjo.2025.101835.
Adults with disabilities face multiple barriers in accessing health care and experience a variety of unmet needs, including dental care. However, few U.S. studies have assessed unmet need for dental care from the perspective of adults with disabilities.
We sought to assess unmet need for dental care services from the perspective of adults with disabilities using a mixed methods approach.
Using individual-level data from the 2022 National Survey on Health and Disability, we conducted a descriptive analysis of participant characteristics, unmet need for dental care, and reasons for unmet need. Using content analysis, we analyzed open-ended text responses from the survey.
While participants most commonly cited underinsurance as a barrier to services, they also highlighted lack of accommodation, dental anxiety, and difficulty securing appointments as issues resulting in unmet dental care needs.
This study illustrates not only the rate of unmet need for dental care for adults with disabilities, but also the reasons driving this phenomenon. Future research is needed to delve further into the reasons cited by participants, namely dental anxiety and the perception that dental providers are unwilling to serve disabled people, neither of which has been explored in-depth quantitatively or qualitatively.
残疾成年人在获得医疗保健方面面临多重障碍，并经历各种未满足的需求，包括牙科护理。然而，美国很少有研究从残疾成年人的角度评估未满足的牙科护理需求。
我们试图采用混合方法从残疾成年人的角度评估未满足的牙科护理服务需求。
利用2022年全国健康与残疾调查的个人层面数据，我们对参与者特征、未满足的牙科护理需求以及未满足需求的原因进行了描述性分析。通过内容分析，我们分析了调查中的开放式文本回复。
虽然参与者最常将保险不足列为获得服务的障碍，但他们也强调缺乏便利设施、牙科焦虑以及难以预约是导致未满足牙科护理需求的问题。
本研究不仅说明了残疾成年人未满足的牙科护理需求率，还揭示了导致这一现象的原因。未来需要进一步研究参与者提到的原因，即牙科焦虑以及认为牙科服务提供者不愿意为残疾人服务的观念，目前尚未对这两个原因进行深入的定量或定性研究。
