Abstract
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the awareness and needs of dentists, and dental hygienists, and medical consumers about including pit and fissure sealants into the coverage of the national health insurance. This study is basically meant to provide information on the future coverage of the national health insurance for it’s efficient future plans and strategies. Methods: A certain number of dental hospitals and clinics were selected from Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi province by stratified sampling in consideration of the total number of the dental institutions in each region. And then one, two and another two questionnaires for a dentist, dental hygienists and medical consumers respectively were sent to each of the selected dental institutions. All collected survey data were processed using SPSS ver 12.0 for data analyses such as frequency analysis, Pearson chi-square test. Results: The rates of the dentists, dental hygienists and medical consumers who consented to the insertion of pit and fissure sealants into the coverage of the national health insurance stood at 68.5%, 81.5%, and 84.8% respectively. Concerning a possible reasonable amount of copayment by the insured for pit and fissure sealants as one of insured dental services, the largest group of the dentists(35.8%) thought that the insured should pay 20 thousand won, and the greatest group of the dental hygienists(39.3%) mentioned 5 to 10 thousand won. The largest group of the medical consumers(44.3%) deemed it reasonable to pay less than five thousand won. Conclusions: As preventive dental treatment is expected to make a great contribution to promoting national oral health, improving the quality of life and curtailing national medical spending in the long run in comparison with the cost, more preventive treatment should be inserted into the coverage of the national health insurance.