Abstract
BackgroundThis study aimed to investigate the utilization of dental services by older seniors during the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate their ability of finding, understanding, and using information on COVID-19.MethodsAt the end of February 2021, a survey addressing demographic characteristics of the participants, (pain-associated) utilization of dental services, worries regarding a potential COVID-19 infection, the individual use of protective masks, and difficulties regarding the access to information on COVID-19 (by using the modified European Health Literacy Questionnaire [HLS-EU-Q16]) was developed. It was sent to all patients of the Dental Clinic of University of Leipzig who were either 75, 80, or 85 years old (n = 1228). Participation was voluntarily and anonymously; questionnaires had to be returned within six weeks, no reminders were sent.ResultsOf the 439 replies (response rate 35.7%), twelve were excluded from data extraction due to disinterest, dementia, or lack of age information. Of the older seniors, 81.5% (n = 348) had utilized at least one dental examination and 54.2% of the dentulous patients (n = 199) had attended at least one dental hygiene appointment within the past year. Up to 55.8% of all participants said it was “difficult” or “very difficult” to find, understand, and use information on COVID-19, especially when judging reliability of information presented in the media, which was especially true for seniors with assigned care levels presenting odds ratios up to 5.30.ConclusionsThe investigation revealed a frequent utilization of dental services by older seniors during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the older seniors encountered difficulties finding, using, and understanding information about COVID-19.
Highlights
This study aimed to investigate the utilization of dental services by older seniors during the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate their ability of finding, understanding, and using information on COVID-19
Weber et al BMC Geriatrics (2022) 22:84 utilization of periodic dental services are steadily transforming to a complaint-associated utilization of dental examinations, which is due to increased frailty and multimorbidity of older patients [4]
The current study aimed to investigate the utilization of dental services by older seniors in the urban area of Leipzig, Germany, during the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
This study aimed to investigate the utilization of dental services by older seniors during the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate their ability of finding, understanding, and using information on COVID-19. In order to regularly examine the oral cavity and prevent or identify potential diseases, an annual dental examination should be considered obligatory. The number of Germans receiving nursing care is constantly increasing, with approximately 3.4 million people in 2017 [6]. In 2014, the Fifth German Oral Health study identified a correlation between nursing care and the utilization of dental examinations by older seniors (75–100 years). While 62% of older seniors without nursing care used dental examinations on a regular and preventive basis, most sameaged seniors with assigned care levels only attended dental examinations when having complaints they had an even higher prevalence of carious lesions or losing teeth [8]
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