Malaysian government dentists' experience, willingness and barriers in providing domiciliary care for elderly people.
OBJECTIVE
To assess Malaysian government dentists' experience, willingness and barriers in providing domiciliary care for elderly people.


MATERIAL AND METHODS
A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using a self-administered postal questionnaire targeting government dentists working in the Ministry of Health in Peninsular Malaysia.


RESULTS
Seven hundred and eleven out of 962 dentists responded with a response rate of 74.0%. Only 36.1% of the dentists had experience in providing domiciliary care for elderly people in the past 2 years with mean number of visit per year of 1. Younger dentists below the age of 30 and those with confidence in providing the service were the most willing to undertake domiciliary care for elderly patients (OR=13.5, p<0.05). The 3 most reported barriers were patient's complex medical history (74.1%), patient's poor attitude towards oral health service (67.5%), and dentist's unfavourable working condition (64.4%).


CONCLUSION
The majority of Malaysian government dentists had not been involved in providing domiciliary care for elderly patients. Apart from overcoming the barriers, other recommendations include improving undergraduate dental education, education for elderly people and carers, improving dentist's working condition, and introducing domiciliary financial incentive for dentist.
['Othman|Akmal Aida|AA|', 'Yusof|Zamros|Z|', 'Saub|Roslan|R|']
D000328:Adult D000367:Age Factors D000368:Aged D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel D001294:Attitude to Health D002908:Chronic Disease D002983:Clinical Competence D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D016321:Dental Care for Aged D017742:Dental Care for Chronically Ill D003812:Dentist-Patient Relations D003815:Dentists D003778:Dentures D005260:Female D006077:Government Agencies D006297:Health Services Accessibility D006699:Home Care Services D006801:Humans D008296:Malaysia D008297:Male D009909:Oral Health D010353:Patient Education as Topic D012649:Self Concept D014081:Tooth Extraction D017132:Workplace
experience willingness barrier domiciliary care elderly Malaysia