Effect of the Army Oral Health Maintenance Program (AOHMP) on the Dental Health Status of Army Personnel. AOHMP Evaluation Study. Part I. The Role of the Required Annual Dental Examination as the Key to the Delivery of Needed Care.

Abstract : The Army Oral Health Maintenance Program is an official Department of the Army program which is designed to determine the oral and dental health care needs of Army personnel and to provide dentally-fit soldiers. The purpose of this phase of the study was to evaluate the program as a principal patient input source. Personnel were evaluated at ten Army installations using the annual dental examination requirements as the vehicle for bringing personnel to the dental clinic. Examinations were done for a period of one full month on all persons presenting for their annual exam. Four months later the dental records of those persons examined were reviewed to determine how much of the needed care was received. Treatment plans were formulated for each patient examined. Dental care needed was broken down into nine categories and sample distributions were determined for both care needed and care received. Patients were evaluated according to three specific characteristics: rank, type of duty performed (combat or combat support/service support), and by post to which assigned. Since those persons who were judged to need no care were not considered in this part of the study, 100 percent of the sample required some kind of dental care, either corrective or preventive.