Productivity in dental care for children. Factors influencing the time spent delivering dental care.

The cost of dental services is related to their productivity. The purpose of the study was to identify factors influencing productivity, measured as time spent providing dental care per child under care, per year, in public dental clinics. The time was expected to vary with characteristics of the patients, the personnel and the clinics. Time spent by dentists and dental hygienists delivering dental care for children aged three to 18 years was obtained from 137 public dental clinics. The data showed substantial variation in productivity between clinics. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the time spent per child was associated with interval between examinations, proportion of male dentists, ratio of dental assistants to dentists, proportion of child treatment time given by dental hygienists and proportion of all treatment time spent on child patients. These variables explained 43 per cent of the variance in the total time spent by dentists and hygienists and 41 per cent of the variance in dentists' time. Individual dentists and hygienists may reduce the mean time spent per child by extending recall intervals. On an administrative level, dentists' time per child may be reduced by employing more dental assistants or dental hygienists and allowing dentists to treat patient groups other than children. It is concluded that productivity in dental care for children in the public dental services may be influenced in several ways, both by clinical and administrative decisions.