Factors related to the performance of dental public health of Det Udom primary care network in Ubon Ratchathani Province

Abstract

This analytical research aimed to: (1) study dental public health performance; (2) evaluate personal characteristics, motivation factors and organization support factors; (3) determine the relationship between personal characteristics, motivation factors, and organization support factors and the dental public health performance; and (4) study problems, obstacles, and suggestions for dental public health performance. The study population consisted of 218 public health officials working on dental public health in the Det Udom District network’s primary care units in Ubon Ratchathani Province. The research was perfomed in all population units. Questionnaire with IOC of 0.88 was used as study tool and the obtained data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The relationship was determined by Chi-square and Pearson's correlation coefficient.

The results showed that: (1) the level of dental public health performance was at highest level; (2) most of the respondents were female with an average age of 38.4 years, graduated with a bachelor’s degree, had average 7.4 years working experience in dental public health, had high level  knowledge of public health performance, and had high level of motivation and organization support factors for dental public health performance; (3) the personal characteristics and knowledge of dental public health operations were not related to dental public health performance, whereas motivation factors had the moderate level of positive correlation with dental public health performance. The organization support factors had high level of positively significant correlation with dental public health performance, p-value = 0.01; and (4) problems and obstacles from the implementation occurred in the oral health promotion and oral disease prevention efforts in the 13-59 age group, In addition working age patients were not able to receive the dental service on workdays. For the elderly and chronic illness patients, their health problems often involve many systemic diseases or complications. Moreover, travel problems including a lack of vehicles or fuel for a follow-up home visits were observed. Based on these findings, the contracting unit of primary care (CUP) and the district health office should set up a team to support the performance and give advice to create motivation to be more efficient and effective. Additionally, a dental health committee should be established to continuously provide and manage resources for all the primary care units in a comprehensive and thorough manner.