This research will address a fundamental question that has yet to be addressed in the dental literature: what is the effectiveness of dental care on dimensions of oral health that are the most important to patients (self-reported oral pain and discomfort, functional limitation, disadvantage, and self-rated oral health)? The dental care of interest is that provided in private practice, non-academic settings for diverse patient populations.
Four specific aims will test hypotheses that regular dental attendance, problem-oriented dental attendance, cost of dental services, and use of specific types of dental care, are associated with differences in each self-reported dimension of oral health (disease and tissue damage, pain and discomfort, functional limitation, disadvantage, and self-rated oral health), as well as clinical measures determined by direct clinical examination. These four hypothesis will be tested after recording all dental treatment received by 873 subjects in the Florida Dental Care Study (FDCS; DE-11020) during a four-year period. Treatment will be abstracted from the clinical records of approximately 330 dental practices named by subjects in the FDCS. These dental treatment data will then be linked with clinical and self-reported oral health data being gathered with DE-11020. This research will answer key questions about what long-term benefits result from the use of specific dental services. It will also provide an understanding of what benefits, or lack thereof, high-risk groups (e.g., African-Americans) perceive as being derived from their use of specific dental services. This proposed research will use an approach that is both innovative (gathers data directly from private practice records and emphasizes self-reported dimensions of oral health) and cost-efficient (uses the FDCS as a parent study), to answer fundamental questions about the relationship between dental care and self-reported dimensions of oral health that matter the most to patients.
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