Suominen-Taipale L, Widström E
Department of Community Dental Health, Institute of Dentistry, University of Turku, Finland.
Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 1998 Apr;26(2):107-14. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0528.1998.tb01936.x.
After enjoying rapid economic growth in the 1980s, Finland suffered a deep economic recession that began in 1990. It has been claimed that recession and uneven subsidies influence the use of dental services negatively. Finnish adults born after 1956 and world war veterans are entitled to subsidized dental care either in the Public Dental Service (PDS) or in the private sector. Other adults pay their treatment costs.
The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the economic recession in Finland during the early 1990s affected the use of dental services.
The data were collected by the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health using a method called CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview). The target population was non-institutionalized persons aged 25-79 years.
About one-third of those interviewed had visited a dentist during the previous 6 months and this proportion was stable during the years studied. Number of teeth, length of education, income and sex had the highest predictive values for use of dental services as analyzed by multiple logistic regression. Two-thirds had visited a private practitioner, one-third a PDS clinic and a small percentage some other dentist or denturist.
The results showed that the dental service utilization by Finns was stable during this period of economic downturn and only minor changes occurred in the mean number of visits. The most prominent change was seen in the youngest age group, among whom dental utilization decreased by almost 10%. The study indicated that subsidies do not strongly affect dental utilization today.
20世纪80年代经历了快速经济增长后，芬兰在1990年开始陷入深度经济衰退。据称，衰退和补贴不均衡对牙科服务的使用产生了负面影响。1956年以后出生的芬兰成年人和退伍军人有权在公共牙科服务机构（PDS）或私营部门享受补贴牙科护理。其他成年人需自行支付治疗费用。
本文旨在确定20世纪90年代初芬兰的经济衰退是否影响了牙科服务的使用情况。
数据由国家福利与健康研究与发展中心通过一种名为CATI（计算机辅助电话访谈）的方法收集。目标人群为25至79岁的非机构化人员。
在接受访谈的人中，约三分之一在过去6个月内看过牙医，且在研究期间这一比例保持稳定。通过多元逻辑回归分析，牙齿数量、受教育年限、收入和性别对牙科服务使用的预测价值最高。三分之二的人看过私人执业医生，三分之一的人去过PDS诊所，还有一小部分人看过其他牙医或假牙师。
结果表明，在这段经济低迷时期，芬兰人的牙科服务利用率保持稳定，就诊次数的均值仅有微小变化。最显著的变化出现在最年轻的年龄组，其中牙科服务利用率下降了近10%。该研究表明，补贴如今对牙科服务利用率的影响不大。
