Evaluation of oral health promotion and prevention services focusing on access to dental care in pregnant women under the Fee Schedule policy

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the coverage of oral care services providing to pregnant women under the Fee schedule policy. The mixed method was used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data were obtained from a questionnaire of 2,322 pregnant women, as well as retrieved secondary data from the HDC database. Qualitative data were obtained from interviews with hospital and sub-district hospital directors, and service providers of 8 hospitals/service centers. It was found that local service system was improved by rotating of dental personnel to provide services at sub-district health promoting hospitals that do not have dental personnel. The service provided for pregnant women include oral screening (49.7%), oral check-up (46.7%), training for proper brushing (20.5%), oral prophylaxis and dental treatment (54.2%). Most of the pregnant women satisfied all those services of more than 90.0%. The executive level also accepted this policy. There are 3 types of reimbursement including full payment, partial payment, and itemized payment. We found some constraints that most pregnant women did not know about this program, and the data entry system is complicate. We suggest that dental services should be integrated as part of a quality ANC normal system, and the data entry should be simple and more practical.