This study examined the extent to which oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) was explained by work-related factors. Subjects were dentate adults in paid employment (n=2,376; mean age=38.0 years) who completed the 1999 National Dental Telephone Interview Survey (response = 56.6%) and follow-up mail survey (response = 64.6%). The dependent variable for OHRQoL was the […]

While oral health of children has improved over recent decades, recent research indicates that the percentages visiting regularly falls away among young adults. Objectives: To investigate changes over time in the use of dental services between 1987-88 and 2001 among a synthetic birth cohort of young adults. Design: Data from six social surveys across 1987/88 […]

Pressures on public dental services require new approaches to managing demand. Objective: this study aimed to assess the reasonableness of patient presentation for emergency dental care by means of developing and evaluating indices of relative need for care. Methods: the study examined associations between subjective indicators and clinical judgement of urgency for ’emergency’ dental care in adults […]

Objective: To evaluate the effects of tooth loss and age on oral health impacts in two nationally-representative adult populations. Methods: Frequency of impacts was measured using the 14-item Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) in cross-sectional national surveys of representative samples of adults in the United Kingdom (n=5,281) and Australia (n=3,910). OHIP scores were expressed as the sum […]

The NSW Department of Health, Oral Health Branch and the AIHW Dental Statistics and Research Unit (DSRU) have entered into a collaborate initiative to evaluate an innovative NSW Oral Health Branch triage system to prioritise patients seeking oral health care. DSRU is evaluating the efficacy of the new system in allocating urgency codes to oral […]

It is widely acknowledged that the high turnover of staff within the public dental services throughout Australia has consequential impacts on both services delivered and costs. In light of such apparent disaffection with the public sector as an employer and insufficient literature relating to dentists’ job satisfaction in Australia, identification of factors that inhibit workforce […]

Objective: To measure job satisfaction among clinical dentists in Victoria so as to identify issues influencing recruitment and retention of dentists in active clinical practice. Design: A questionnaire measuring facets of job satisfaction was mailed to a stratified random sample of 80 private and 80 public sector dentists selected from the 1999 Victorian Dental Register. Results: An adjusted […]