1/2?purpose of the study is to assess the influence of the demographic factors, socio-economic factors and illness factors on the dental service utilization and identify the correlation between these factors and dental service utilization. The expected benetit is to provide the bases for the establishment of the effective and equitable dental health policy under the current circumstance of worsening morbidity of dental diseases and increasing utilization of dental service.
The data used are secondary data from "1995 Survey on Public Health Status health Behavior" conducted by the Korean Institute of Health & Social Affairs for July 1-31, 1995 and the total sample number is 15,051.
The Andersen Model explaining the medical service utilization was adopted as the study model. The logistic regression was used as the analysis method considering the distribution of the dependent variables.
The seven factors including living areas, the number of family member, sex, age, education, marriage status, occupation were set as dependent variables from the predisposing component and two factors including the family income and regular treatment source, from the enabling component. In addition, two factors including the self-assessment on the health status and the dental diseases were chosen from the need component.
The major findings of the study are as follows:
First, the sighificant factors directly influencing the utilization of dental service were the self-assessment on the dental diseases from the need component, education level, the number of family member, age, the perception on the health status, marriage status, regular treatment source, family income, sex, occupation on order.
Second, the significant factors indirectly influencing the utilization of dental service were age, sex, living area, the number of family member, education level, marriag status, occupation from the predisposing gactor, family income, regular treatment source from the enabling factor.
Third, the degree of influence of the three components on the dental service utilization was the need component, predisposing component and edabling component in order.
In conclusion, the results of the study indicate that the difference in the dental service utilization in terms of living areas, education level, occupation, income level has not been narrowed. The accessibility of dental service need to be enhanced in such direction to improve the equity and effectiveness of dental service utilization.
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