Do the Indonesians Receive the Dental Care Treatment They Need? A Secondary Analysis on Self-Perceived Dental Care Need

Diah Ayu Maharani

doi:10.5402/2012/769809

Abstract

Increasing access for citizens to health services, including dental care, is one of the primary targets of the Indonesian Ministry of Health. To assess progress toward this goal, we sought to describe the magnitude of unmet needs for dental care among Indonesians. Secondary data of nationally representative surveys conducted from 2003 to 2007 were analysed to describe the associations between unmet needs for dental care in different demographic groups. In average, 2.28% of the Indonesian population reported perceiving need for dental care and 0.74% reported utilizing dental care. The average of unmet need was 72.04%. Logistic regression analysis indicated that respondents who lived in rural areas, who were uninsured, had higher odds ratios in reporting unmet dental care needs. Perceived need for and utilization of dental care among Indonesians was found to be low. Moreover, the unmet need for dental care is relatively high.

Highlights

In a WHO [1] publication, it is stated that one of the primary targets of the Indonesian Ministry of Health is to increase access for citizens to health services, including dental care
Improvement of the community’s dental health is a central goal of dental health care interventions, only little attention has yet been paid to changes in subjective or selfperceptions regarding dental health [10]
This study revealed that despite the national prevalence of caries was 43.4% only 2.28% of the respondents of Susenas perceived a need for dental care

Summary

Introduction

In a WHO [1] publication, it is stated that one of the primary targets of the Indonesian Ministry of Health is to increase access for citizens to health services, including dental care. Facts indicated that dental health problems can still be found in almost every area in Indonesia. The Indonesian Basic Health Survey 2007 showed that the rates of edentulous were 2% of the whole population, and only 4.5% of them used dentures. The biggest component was missing teeth (M-T), which was 3.86, describing that in average every Indonesian has 4 teeth extracted or was indicated for extraction. 17.6% of Indonesians aged 65 or older had lost all their teeth. This percentage is far from the WHO target of less than 5% edentulous for year 2010 [2]

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion