Utilization of Dental Services and Perception Towards Dental Insurance Among Software Professional in Chennai City: A Cross Sectional Survey

Aim: To assess the utilization of dental services and perception towards dental insurance among the Software professionals who are working in Chennai city. Materials and methods: A cross sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among 364 software professionals in Chennai city, to identify the utilization of dental services and their perception towards dental insurance policy. After reviewing the related articles, a questionnaire including demographic data, utilization pattern, and perception towards the Dental insurance were framed. In order to standardize and validate the questionnaire content Validity Index was used and Reliability test was done by test-retest method. Google forms were sent to the study subjects to collect information. Collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test. Results: The software professionals were aware about the utilization of dental services, their last dental visit was 1-2 years ago (34%), their place of preference of dental treatment was to be private clinics (75%) and about (50%) of the participants preferred prevention of oral disease is as important than treatment. The major barrier for not utilizing dental service was to be fear in which female showed more fear for dental treatments. Their perception towards frequency of dental visits was found to be once in a year (32%). Regarding dental insurance perception the software professionals had very less knowledge about the benefits of dental insurance policy. Only 2.5% of them are using dental insurance offered by their company. Conclusion: The present study reveals that the software professionals are utilizing the dental services adequately. More than half of them have utilized dental services in the past two years, they have enough awareness about the dental importance and they prefer prevention is better than cure. But they have poor awareness regarding the benefits covered in their health insurance plans although they showed a positive attitude towards dental insurance plans. Only very few of them are benefitted by the dental insurance policy. Efforts should be taken to increase the awareness regarding dental insurance and their benefits.