The objectives of this study were to determine the rate of use of dental services by independently living older dentate and edentulous adults and the factors affecting utilization.
Data were derived from the cross-sectional Manitoba Study of Health and Aging. A personal interview included over 240 questions addressing sociodemographics, well-being, oral and general health, and health service utilization. Variables that were significantly associated with visitation on bivariate analysis were entered into separate logistic regressions for dentate and edentulous participants. The Anderson model of health service utilization was used to categorize variables with significant independent effects as predisposing, enabling and need factors.
The 1,751 participants had a mean age of 76.2 years (standard deviation 7.1); 58.5% were women and 72.7% were edentulous. Only 383 participants (21.9%) reported having visited a dentist in the past 6 months. The visitation rate for dentate seniors (36.2%) was significantly higher (p