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Ethnic and Sex Variations in Dental Care Utilization Patterns in a Group of Malaysian Elderly
Author(s) -
Razak Ishak A.,
Ali Mohamed M.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
gerodontology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1741-2358
pISSN - 0734-0664
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-2358.1988.tb00308.x
Subject(s) - ethnic group , toothache , medicine , kuala lumpur , dental care , dentures , family medicine , dentistry , demography , gerontology , marketing , sociology , anthropology , business
The purpose of this study was to identify the ethnic and sex variations in the motives for seeking dental care in a group of Malaysian elderly. Three hundred and forty‐two patients aged 55 years and above who presented themselves for treatment for the first time at the Dental Faculty, University of Mayala, Kuala Lumpur in 1986 were screened for their chief dental complaints. Request for dentures and extractions and complaints of toothache were the more frequent dental motives in all the ethnic groups. However, there exist ethnic and sex variations among these dental complaints. The Chinese were found to be high utilizers of rehabilitative services whereas the Malays and Indians were more frequent utilizers of emergency services. The only consistent feature between sex among all the ethnic groups for the more frequent dental complaints was that more females complained of toothache than males.