Socioeconomic Determinants and Demand for Dental Avulsions at the Institute of Odontology and Stomatology Clinic in Dakar

Abstract

Dental avulsion is one of the most common acts performed in dentistry. It concerns both the young population, but its prevalence increases with age. The objective of this work was to study the socio-economic determinants and the demand for dental avulsions at the Institute of Odontology of the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar (UCAD). This was a descriptive cross-sectional study of patients who were seen in the oral surgery department of the UCAD Odontology Clinic. Data were collected from medical records from October 14, 2019 to March 28, 2020. Tools used to collect and process the information were Sphinx software and Excel spreadsheet. From this, it was found that of the 525 patient records, 60% were male and 52.19% were between the ages of 20 and 39 years. More than half (53.14%) of patients lived less than 5 km from the health care facility and 42.7% of patients had a monthly income of between 50,000 and 100,000 FCFA. Clinically, 49.9% of patients came for an odontalgic reason and periodontitis followed by coronal destruction were the most diagnosed pathologies. Also, there is a relation between diagnosis and the variables age and income with respectively P-value 0.023 and 0.001. Closeness to health facilities, income, and cost of treatment are factors that influence accessibility to oral health care. It is important to integrate the health care consumer's profile in the overall approach to care.