| Abstract |
Background: Extreme austerity policies have been implemented in Greece since 2008 for more than 10 years due to the economic crisis that has hit the country, with a sharp rise in unemployment, declining wages, and cuts in social spending. With the first memorandum in 2010 and the second in 2012, Greece undertook to reduce its expenditures in the health sector by reducing them to lower levels even before 2004 (Reeves et al, 2013) where in addition to reducing workers' wages and of their overtime, it was asked to reduce the pharmaceutical cost of the funds using generic drugs and having a higher participation of patients. Still imposing the electronic prescription, they aimed at exploring the field. Citizen's oral health took second place as difficult economic conditions changed the priorities of all people. Objective: In this paper we investigate the care and priority in oral health given by people who visited the health center of Arkalochori before and during the financial crisis. The aim is to find out the impact of the financial crisis on their dental and general health, what impact the financial crisis had on the quality of their oral care and whether they changed their habits of seeking and providing dental services.
Methodology: For the realization of the research the questionnaire of Fotis et al. from whom its use was requested and obtained. It was distributed to people entering the Arkalochori Central Hospital in September 2021 (N = 120). The questionnaire consisted of 29 questions, which concerned the frequency of dental visits of the individual during the crisis before and after, his general and oral health and whether he was affected during this time. It took an average of 5 minutes to complete. Selection criteria for completing the questionnaire were the person to be an adult, to have a satisfactory knowledge of writing and reading the Greek language and to be a visitor for any reason of K.Y. Arkalochori while exclusion criteria were any physical, psychiatric or social condition that hinders the visitor's ability to complete the questionnaire and individuals under 18 years. The distribution took place at the Arkalochori Hospital in the morning hours of September 2021 and concerned all the people who visited the K.Y. Arkalochori in the morning for any reason. Permission was also requested and received from the scientific committee of 7 YPE.
This was followed by statistical analysis of the data with the IBM SPSS Statistics 24.0 program. The significance limit was set to α = 0.05. The questions, apart from their demographic characteristics, concerned their attitude towards dental care issues before and during the crisis.
Results: No deprivation of health-related health care due to financial capacity 51 persons declare, while 55 state "minimal" and 44 "sufficient". Respondents do not consider the state to provide adequate dental care (55-choice at all). There was a decrease in visits during the financial crisis from 28 people who visited the dentist twice a year before to 17 people during. The same decrease was observed in people who visited the dentist once a year. The number of urgent visits also increased from 26 to 42. Finally, the largest number of participants (60.8%) did not change their oral hygiene habits while a significant number (31.6%) appeared to reduce the frequency of preventive visits. Still an overwhelming percentage of respondents (91.5%) have insurance with 84.7% having public insurance and only 8.5% being uninsured. In terms of oral hygiene care only 28.6% brush twice a day and 69.7% do not use dental floss. 37.5% have not visited the dentist in the last year. Of the 50 people who stated that they have children under the age of 15, 69.4% go to the children for a preventive examination while 30.6% go to the children only if there is a need. 54.4% believe that the cost of dental work has increased during the financial crisis and 46.2% have asked for a discount or ease of payment, while 72.3% say that they would prioritize possible future dental work over some other need. They admit that the financial crisis has negatively affected their visits to the dentist by 57.1% and that the increase in income contributes to the increase in visits to a health professional by a corresponding rate of 57.3%. The age of the respondents seems to be the only variable that affects the visits to the dentist after the financial crisis (p = 0.001). People of small age groups indicate less change p
Conclusions. The financial crisis seems to have affected the dental care of the inhabitants of the Arkalochori area. Dental prevention, (annual preventive checkups to recognize the current oral condition), showed a decline of about 29% compared to the pre-crisis period. Visits to a dental clinic during the financial crisis are mainly related to emergencies. Extending the research to other areas of Crete would help to highlight whether this is a local differentiation or a more general event
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Επιπτώσεις της οικονομικής κρίσης στη οδοντιατρική φροντίδα των ατόμων που επισκέπτονται το κέντρο υγείας Αρκαλοχωρίου
