Participants should be aware of the following financial/non-financial relationships: . Inder P. Singh, BDS MBA: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.. Elizabeth Kaye, MPH, PhD: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.. Thayer Scott, BS, MPH: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
Abstract: Objectives: Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world and its association with oral health is not fully established. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between depression and the patient’s willingness to go to the dentist on their own and time since the last dental visit. Methods: This is a secondary data analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)data from 2011 to 2018. Study participants were classified into two categories of having either none to mild depression or moderate to severe depression by utilizing the DSM-IV depression diagnostic criteria. Associations between depression, reason and the time of last dental visit were analyzed with multiple logistic regression models adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity, marital status and levels of income and education. Results: A sample size of 17,330 participants was used in the analysis. After adjusting for potential confounders: we found that people with moderate to severe depression were 0.7 times as likely to visit the dentist on their own (OR 0.7, CI 0.6 – 0.8) as compared to patients with none to mild depression. People with moderate to severe depression had 1.2 times the odds of having visited the dentist more than 2 years ago as compared to people with none to mild depression (OR 1.23, CI 1.08 -1.4). Conclusions: Our results suggest that people with moderate to severe depression tend to avoid dental visits for regular checkups and cleanings and are more likely to delay their visit for more than two years.
