The Overall Health-Status of Dental Patients

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the general health condition i.e. overall health-status of the dental patients population by processing the data obtained from the FDI health-questionnaires which was recommended by the Croatian Dental Chamber. The data which was collected from a total of 2045 individual medical history questionnaires - personally filled in by the patients who attended this Department of Endodontics and Restorative Dentistry during the year of 2005 - was loaded into a computer data-base and statistically analyzed. The analysis showed presence of some kind of a disease in 30.1% of patients; topping the list by incidence were cardiovascular diseases (14.7%). Also, highly represented were various allergic diseases (13.1%). A 1.5% had developed a viral hepatitis, whereas 0.6% of the patients had even had TBC. A comparatively small percentage of patients (0.2%) had admitted to HIV seropositivity resp. exposure to the HIV virus (0.5%). A total of 12% of the group had received a blood-transfusion at some point. Typically, a dental patient above 75 years of age was taking in average 2.16 different types of medicinal drugs. High incidence of systemic diseases in dental patients and an increased consumption of medicinal drugs in the elderly dental patients indicates the need for an enhanced education of the dentist in order to enable his/her proper attitude toward such patients.