• Public health reports · Mar 2011

    Secular trends in hospital emergency department visits for dental care in Kansas City, Missouri, 2001-2006.

    • Liang Hong, Arif Ahmed, Michael McCunniff, Yifei Liu, Jinwen Cai, and Gerald Hoff.
    • Division of Community Dentistry, Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Community Dentistry, University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Dentistry, Memphis, TN 38136, USA. lhong2@uthsc.edu
    • Public Health Rep. 2011 Mar 1; 126 (2): 210-9.

    ObjectivesWe determined the trends, risk factors, and costs of emergency department (ED) visits for dental complaints during a six-year period in Kansas City, Missouri (KCMO).MethodsWe used de-identified hospital discharge data from all facilities serving KCMO during 2001-2006. Using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes, we determined both counts and rates of ED visits related to toothache or tooth injury and analyzed the discharge diagnosis and costs of these visits. We used multivariable regression analysis to assess risk factors for the ED visits for dental complaints.ResultsWe found a significant increasing trend in dental complaint visits during the six-year period (from 13.1% to 19.0%, p < 0.01). Dental caries accounted for 20.4%, pulpitis or periapical abscess accounted for 14.8%, dental injury accounted for 8.7%, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders accounted for 1.5%, and all other unspecified dental diseases accounted for 54.6% of the ED visits for dental complaints. The mean charge was approximately $360 per visit and was highest for TMJ disorders ($747) and lowest for unspecified other dental diseases ($277). Self-pay (38.3%) and Medicaid (32.3%) constituted the majority of the payment sources. Multivariable regression analysis indicated that self-payers, nonwhite people, adults, people with lower family income, and weekends were associated with increased use of ED visits for dental complaints.ConclusionsThere was a significant increasing trend in dental complaint-related ED visits. EDs have become an important site for people with dental problems to seek urgent care, particularly for individuals who self-pay or are on Medicaid.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…