Evaluation of treatment needs and different performed treatments in the Dental School, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

Treatment is successful when the patient refers on time and the disease is recognized soon. On the other hand, evaluation of the most common and important diagnostic-treatment needs in every center has an important role in program planning. The aim of this study was to determine diagnostic needs and performed treatments in different departments of Dental School, Shahid Beheshti University on 2007-2008 This research was designed to evaluate the existing data. 2000 records (written- computerized) of the patients, referred to the Oral Medicine department of dental school, on 30 active days were randomly selected and studied. Also 150 records were randomly selected to evaluate the causes of seeking dental services. The data was analyzed using chi-square test. This study was accomplished on 2000 patient records of which 53/6% were female and 46/4% were male. Samples age was 31/6+- 16/2. The most common complaints were toothache (31%), tooth restoration (19/5%), checkup (9/2%), tooth replacement (8%) and periodontal diseases (6/9%). Diagnostic- treatment needs were as follows: tooth restoration(71%) radiography(69/5%), periodontal treatment(56/6%), endodontic treatment(52/2%) surgery(38%), fixed prosthesis(12/9%) orthodontics(5/4%). Maximum referral was to radiology (97/3%) and minimum was to removable prosthodontic department (54/4%). The maximum performed diagnostic- treatment procedures were accomplished in radiology (36%) and operative (15%) and the minimum were in pathology and orthodontic (1/4%) departments. Needs in patients referring to Oral Medicine department were more than their requests but they have not returned to complete their treatments on a regular basis.Key words: Diagnostic- Treatment needs- Requests- Chief Complaints.