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Influence of dental care systems on dental status. A comparison between two countries with different systems but similar living standards.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the influence of two different dental care systems on dental status, taking into account relevant socio-economic factors.


BASIC RESEARCH DESIGN
Questionnaire studies on randomly sampled subjects in Denmark and Sweden using questionnaire forms as identical as possible with regard to the different languages.


SETTING
The studies were performed late in 1998 in both countries.


PARTICIPANTS
Questionnaires were sent to 1,175 subjects aged 45-69 years in Denmark (response rate 73%) and to 1,001 subjects aged 55-79 years in Sweden (response rate 67%).


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Questions about dental status and about socioeconomic factors and attitudes toward dental care were included. In logistic regression models, various dichotomies of dental conditions were used as dependent variables. State (Denmark vs. Sweden) was used as an independent variable together with socioeconomic factors and attitudes.


RESULTS
There were great differences between the countries in dental status. In the regression model with 'wearing removable denture(s)' as the dependent variable, state was the strongest predictor with an OR of above 4.1 for Denmark compared to Sweden. much stronger than variables such as age, income, education and residence.


CONCLUSION
The results indicate that the Swedish dental care system has been superior to the Danish one regarding dental status in middle aged and older populations in these two countries.