AIM

To describe the dental care consumption in a random sample of the population of a Swedish county 1990-1992 and to compare this with results from other Swedish studies, especially those using different self-reporting methods.

SUBJECTS

One sixtieth of all adult inhabitants in the County of Göteborgs and Bohus län (all individuals born on the 17th day of an odd month) formed the sample.

DESIGN

All insurance claims sent from both public and private dentists to the local insurance offices were registered in a data base. Thus every treatment registration was collected into this data base, independently, whether it was made in a private clinic or in the Public Dental Service and whether or not by a dental hygienist or other grade. Since almost all dental care in Sweden was performed within the dental insurance system, these registrations could be regarded as very near to the total dental care consumption of this group. The registrations were related to the age of the patient, the type of care (acute/regular), regularity, dental hygienist treatment and other factors.

RESULTS

It was found that the youngest and the oldest patients visited a dentist less often, that approximately a quarter received hygienist care, that many received emergency treatment sometime during the observation period but that a majority also had regular dental care. Studies using a self-reporting technique reported a systematically higher level of consumption than those using insurance claim registration.

CONCLUSIONS

Dental care consumption studies using self-reporting methods will probably overestimate the actual consumption. Emergency treatment is frequent even among patients who go to a dentist regularly.