Assessing unmet need for dental care from the perspective of adults with disabilities: A mixed methods approach.

IF 3.3 2区医学 Q1 HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES

Disability and Health Journal Pub Date : 2025-04-02 DOI:10.1016/j.dhjo.2025.101835

Marissa Andréah Diaz, Elizabeth Geneva Wood, Weili Yuan, Gilbert Gimm, Jae Kennedy

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: Adults with disabilities face multiple barriers in accessing health care and experience a variety of unmet needs, including dental care. However, few U.S. studies have assessed unmet need for dental care from the perspective of adults with disabilities.

Objective: We sought to assess unmet need for dental care services from the perspective of adults with disabilities using a mixed methods approach.

Methods: Using individual-level data from the 2022 National Survey on Health and Disability, we conducted a descriptive analysis of participant characteristics, unmet need for dental care, and reasons for unmet need. Using content analysis, we analyzed open-ended text responses from the survey.

Results: While participants most commonly cited underinsurance as a barrier to services, they also highlighted lack of accommodation, dental anxiety, and difficulty securing appointments as issues resulting in unmet dental care needs.

Conclusion: This study illustrates not only the rate of unmet need for dental care for adults with disabilities, but also the reasons driving this phenomenon. Future research is needed to delve further into the reasons cited by participants, namely dental anxiety and the perception that dental providers are unwilling to serve disabled people, neither of which has been explored in-depth quantitatively or qualitatively.

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从残疾成人的角度评估未满足的牙科保健需求：一种混合方法。

背景：成年残疾人在获得卫生保健方面面临多重障碍，并经历各种未满足的需求，包括牙科保健。然而，很少有美国研究从残疾成人的角度评估未满足的牙科保健需求。目的：我们试图从残疾成人的角度评估未满足的牙科保健服务需求，采用混合方法。方法：利用2022年全国健康与残疾调查的个人数据，对参与者特征、未满足的牙科保健需求以及未满足需求的原因进行描述性分析。使用内容分析，我们分析了来自调查的开放式文本回复。结果：虽然参与者最常引用保险不足作为服务的障碍，但他们也强调缺乏住宿，牙科焦虑和难以确保预约作为导致未满足牙科保健需求的问题。结论：本研究不仅说明了残障成人牙科护理需求未被满足的比率，还说明了导致这一现象的原因。未来的研究需要进一步深入研究参与者所引用的原因，即牙科焦虑和牙科提供者不愿意为残疾人服务的看法，这两方面都没有深入的定量或定性探讨。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Disability and Health Journal HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES-PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

CiteScore

7.50

自引率

6.70%

发文量

134

审稿时长

34 days

期刊介绍： Disability and Health Journal is a scientific, scholarly, and multidisciplinary journal for reporting original contributions that advance knowledge in disability and health. Topics may be related to global health, quality of life, and specific health conditions as they relate to disability. Such contributions include: • Reports of empirical research on the characteristics of persons with disabilities, environment, health outcomes, and determinants of health • Reports of empirical research on the Systematic or other evidence-based reviews and tightly conceived theoretical interpretations of research literature • Reports of empirical research on the Evaluative research on new interventions, technologies, and programs • Reports of empirical research on the Reports on issues or policies affecting the health and/or quality of life for persons with disabilities, using a scientific base.