• Patrick J Arbuckle, Thomas Beltran, and Erik Reifenstahl.
• Advanced Education in General Dentistry 2-Year, Fort Liberty Dental Health Activity, Fort Liberty, NC 28310, USA.
• Mil Med. 2024 Mar 25.

IntroductionThe purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between subjects' oral health characteristics and the incidence of a dental emergency over 1 year.Materials And MethodsThe Corporate Dental System (CDS) generated a limited data set for service members assigned for dental care at Fort Liberty, North Carolina. Data extracted included demographics and oral health characteristics (dental readiness classification, caries risk, periodontal screening and recording values (PSR), and tobacco use). Subjects were grouped based on the presence of a dental emergency visit code in the past year.ResultsA total of 20,210 individuals were included in the sample; 8.5% of individuals sought emergency dental care during the period. Kruskal-Wallis tests found significant differences (P < 0.05) in dental emergencies between age groups, sex, rank, dental readiness classification, and caries risk. Younger age, female soldiers, and low caries risk had the most significant increase in dental emergencies. There was no significant difference in dental emergencies between PSR or tobacco usage groups.ConclusionThis study supports a relationship between demographics, oral health characteristics, and dental emergencies. Age may be related to service members entering the military with untreated or managed dental needs, notably around the age of third molar eruption. Sex differences may be related to willingness or preference to utilize non-emergency dental care visits. The inverse relationship between caries risk and dental emergencies could be due to identification and management of high caries risk patients. This project highlights the need for further study and increasingly discrete measurement of oral health care characteristics and coding for etiologies of dental emergencies.Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States 2024. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

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