Pattern of Dental Clinic Attendance of Registered Diabetic Patients in Ibadan

Abstract

A study on a stratified sample of 120 adult registered diabetic patients from the only two diabetes clinics in Ibadan, University College Hospital (UCH) and Ring Road Government Hospital and fifty (50) healthy adult nondiabetic volunteers as control, shows that 51.48% of the interviewees have never visited the dental clinic in their lifetime. Also 43.3% of both diabetes and healthy control groups have not visited the dental clinic for more than one year. The mean duration since their last visit was 3.47 yrs (SD±2.48yrs). Interviewees with higher educational status; post-Secondary School Higher Education, had statistically significant lower percentage frequency of nonattendance 15.79% (P<0.0053). The percentage frequency of regular attendance among women was significantly higher than among men, 9.1% and 5.0% (P<0.0005) respectively. Dental clinic attendance in the healthy control is comparable to the attendance of the study group. Although more diabetic patients than the healthy control group attended the dental clinic occasionally due to one problem or another, this was not statistically significant. (chi sq=0.68 P≤0.44).Toothache was the greatest facilitator of dental clinic attendance. The greatest barrier to the dental clinic attendance of diabetic patients as well as the healthy control group was lack of perceived need for dental care.


Keywords: Dental Clinic attendance, diabetes mellitus, facilitators, Dental infections

Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Research Vol. 5 (1) 2006: pp. 36-43