Evaluation of the impact of health transformation plan on oral and dental health indicators in Guilan Province-Iran

The evaluation of the results of health transformation plan in dentistry, which started in March 2016 with the aim of improving oral and dental health, is extremely important in order to improve planning for future actions. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of the health transformation plan on common oral health indices in Guilan province in Iran.

This cross-sectional analytical study was performed using the Health Deputy of Guilan University of Medical Sciences data and results of the general population and housing census of the 2010 and 2015. Data analysis was done using Ordinary Least Squares regression method, considering dependent variables including DMFT, dmft and periodontal disease indices (CPI) and independent variables including gender, education, urban or rural residence, percentage of 13-year-old population, illiteracy rate, fertility rate and being or not in the transformation plan, to investigate the difference between the two groups before and after the implementation of the transformation plan in terms of variables and to examine the relationship between independent and dependent variables. Finally, data were analyzed by STATA SE software version 15.

The health transformation plan did not have a significant relationship with the change of DMFT and CPI 2 to CPI 6 indices, but had succeeded in reducing dmft and CPI1 (P<0.05), which reduction in CPI1 index was not desirable.

It seems that despite the extensive activities of the health transformation plan in dentistry in the field of prevention and treatment, there is still a need for more changes, especially in terms of culture and education. Also, there is need to provide more facilities for access to services by all sections of the society, especially the weak sections for healthcare.