Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate factors associated with the presence or absence of cooperation between home care support offices and dental clinics. In 2010, we randomly selected 2,820 home care support offices and mailed questionnaires to them. The contents of the questionnaire were:presence or absence of cooperation with dentists, physical condition of users of home care support services (HCSS), number of employees at home care support offices, number of HCSS users with oral health problems, and others. Using prefecture-level data (as of 2006) for the population, the elderly population, and the number of dentists, we conducted a logistic regression analysis to assess factors associated with the presence or absence of cooperation between home care support offices and dentists. The analysis showed that home care support offices in prefectures with larger elderly populations were less cooperative with dentists but home care support offices with larger numbers of employees were more cooperative.
