Predictors of the use of dental services by older veterans.

By the year 2000, it is likely that more than 66% of all US males will be veterans as a result of the large World War II cohort. This growing population of older veterans will have a major influence on the use of dental services at Veterans Administration facilities. The objectives of the project reported here were to identify and examine factors that explain use of dental services by noninstitutionalized veterans older than 55 years; this was a secondary analysis of a VA commissioned survey of 3,013 community-based veterans older than 55 years. A behavioral model developed by Anderson and Aday that identified predisposing, enabling, and need factors that determined use of health care services was adopted to analyze the data. A linear regression analysis showed that need factors accounted for the greatest degree of explained variance in use of dental services (R2 = .15), whereas enabling factors accounted for the least degree of variance (R2 = .02). Perception of dental problems, positive perception of physical health, perception of ability to meet expenses, and levels of education and income were significant predictors of use of dental services. The findings of this study show the use of dental services by noninstitutionalized veterans and other noninstitutionalized older populations is influenced by similar factors. The findings can be useful in discussing and formulating dental health care policy for older veterans.