Willingness to pay for osteoporosis risk assessment in primary dental care

Helena Christell (), Joanna Gullberg (), Kenneth Nilsson (), Sofia Heidari Olofsson (), Christina Lindh () and Thomas Davidson ()
Additional contact information
Helena Christell: Malmö University
Joanna Gullberg: Malmö University
Kenneth Nilsson: Malmö University
Sofia Heidari Olofsson: Malmö University
Christina Lindh: Malmö University
Thomas Davidson: Linköping University

Health Economics Review, 2019, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Background Fragility fracture related to osteoporosis among postmenopausal women is a significant cause of morbidity. The care and aftercare of these fractures are associated with substantial costs to society. A main problem is that many individuals suffer from osteoporosis without knowing it before a fracture happens. Dentists may have an important role in early identification of individuals with osteoporosis by assessment of dental radiographs already included in the dental examination. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate postmenopausal women’s preferences for an osteoporosis risk assessment in primary dental care. Results Most respondents (129 of 144 (90%)) were willing to pay for an osteoporosis risk assessment in primary dental care. The overall mean willingness to pay (WTP) including respondents that denoted none or zero WTP was 44.60 € (CI 95% 38.46–50.74 €) (median 34.75 €). A majority (80.6%) of the respondents that denoted WTP also gave a motivation for their answer. The two most common reasons denoted for being willing to pay for osteoporosis risk assessment were the importance of early diagnosis and preventive care to avoid fractures (41.0%) and the importance of knowledge of a risk of osteoporosis (26.4%). A majority of respondents (67.8%) considered it valuable if dental clinics would offer osteoporosis risk assessment. Conclusions Postmenopausal women seem to find it valuable to be offered osteoporosis risk assessment in primary dental care and are willing to pay for such a risk assessment. From a societal perspective early diagnosis of osteoporosis by risk assessment in primary dental care could prevent osteoporotic related fractures and benefit women’s health and quality of life, as well as have a major impact on the health-care budget in terms of cost-savings.

Keywords: Dental clinics; Health economics; Medico economic; Osteoporosis; Patient acceptance of health care; willingness to pay; I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s13561-019-0232-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:hecrev:v:9:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1186_s13561-019-0232-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/13561

DOI: 10.1186/s13561-019-0232-z

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics Review is currently edited by J. Matthias Graf von der Schulenburg

More articles in Health Economics Review from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().