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Kim and Shin: Dental hospital selection factors using triangle fuzzy numbers with a focus on supplier factors
Original Article

J Korean Acad Oral Health 2015;39(2):110-118.

Published online: 12 June 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11149/jkaoh.2015.39.2.110

Dental hospital selection factors using triangle fuzzy numbers with a focus on supplier factors

Min-Young Kim, Hosung Shin

Department of Social and Humanity in Dentistry, Dental College, Wonkwang University School of Dentistry, Iksan, Korea

Corresponding Author: Hosung Shin Department of Social and Humanity in Dentistry, Dental College, Wonkwang University School of Dentistry, 460 Iksan-deoro, Iksan 570-749, Korea Tel: +82-63-850-6995 Fax: +82-63-850-6934 E-mail: shinhosung@gmail.com

Received 26 February 2015       Revised 15 April 2015       Accepted 1 May 2015

Copyright © 2015 Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

This study analyzes supplier factors that affect the selection of dental hospitals.

Methods

This study performed an analysis by combining outpatient use data, household data, and additional survey data in 2011 from the Korea Health Panel Annual Data from 2008 to 2011. Standardization was conducted on variables of supplier-related factors, and a four-point scale survey questionnaire was converted into a triangle fuzzy number to fuzzify the data. A two-part model was applied to the fuzzified values. In the first part, a study was conducted to determine which supplier factors affected the decision to visit dental outpatient facilities. In the second part, dental outpatient facilities use was analyzed based on the supplier factors.

Results

The study results showed that ages, marital status, education level, position of employment, and income level affected the decision to visit dental outpatient facilities. Furthermore, gender and age affected the usage of dental outpatient facilities. In conclusion, supplier factors affected the decision to visit dental outpatient facilities and usage significantly. Among the supplier factors, dentist recommendation was a significant factor.

Conclusions

Based on the study results, it is necessary for dental care suppliers to provide a measure for appropriate service strategy focused on dental consumers’ demand on improvements of dental service value and dental care quality.

Keywords: Dental care quality, Dental hospitals, Supplier factors, Triangle fuzzy number

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Fig. 1.
Dental service types.
jkaoh-39-110f1.tif
Fig. 2.
Supplier factors according to type of dental services.
jkaoh-39-110f2.tif
Table 1.
Variables of analyses
Variables name Description
Dependent variables Whether one uses dental care for a year or not No=1, Yes=2
The visit number of dental care utilization for a year The visit number of dental care utilization for a year
Independent variables Gender Male=1, Female=2
Age 20-45 years=1, 45-65 years=2, ≥65 years=3, ≤20 years=4
Marital status Married=1, Unmarried=2, Divorced/Widowed/Separated=3
Education level ≤Primary school=1, Middle school=2, High school =3, =College≥4
Employment by Status of Worker Interim/Day labor=1, Regular=2, Employees=3, Other=4
Economic activity Activity=1, Non-activity=2
Income quartile Low=1, Low-middle=2, High-middle=3, High=4
Dentistry Operative dentistry=1, Prosthetics=2, Implants=3, Orthodontics=4,
Periodontics=5, Oral and maxillofacial surgery=6, Preventive
treatment=7
Supplier factors Trust, Patient respect, Consultation hours, listening courteously,
Explanation
Table 2.
Triangular Fuzzy Numbers
Linguistic Terms Very Low Low High Very High
Fuzzy number (a,b,c) (0, 0, 0.33) (0, 0.33, 0.67) (0.33, 0.67, 1) (0.67, 1, 1)
Table 3.
Socio-demographic characteristics of respondents (unit: persons, %)
User Non-user %
Gender Male 3,365 1,126 42.62
Female 4,537 1,510 57.38
Age 20 years or below 169 50 2.08
20-45 years 2,800 844 34.58
45-65 years 2,878 1,074 37.50
65 years or over 2,055 688 25.84
Education level Primary school or lower 2,005 579 24.52
Middle school or lower 940 376 12.49
High school 2,505 846 31.80
College or higher 2,452 835 31.19
Income quartile Low 2,044 592 25.01
Low-middle 1,955 639 25.00
High-middle 1,964 675 25.04
High 1,899 730 24.95
Marital status Married 5,835 1,997 74.32
Unmarried 975 326 12.35
Divorced/Widowed/Separated 1,092 313 13.33
Employment by status of worker Interim/Day labor 1,393 421 17.21
Regular 464 185 6.16
Employees 985 358 12.74
Other 5,060 1,672 63.88
Economic activity Activity 4,590 1,518 57.96
Non-activity 3,312 1,118 42.04
Table 4.
Dental service types according to socio-demographic characteristics(unit: percent)
Variables Classification Operativedentistry Prosthetics Implants Orthodontics Periodontics Oral andmaxillofacialsurgery Preventivetreatment Other P
Gender Male 41.56 43.80 50.00 23.38 44.79 51.52 25.00 35.48 0.001
Female 58.44 56.20 50.00 76.62 55.21 48.48 75.00 64.52
Age 25-45 years 37.70 9.49 18.18 76.62 26.04 37.88 25.00 32.26 0.000
45-65 years 39.83 30.66 59.09 2.60 44.48 32.58 66.67 46.77
65 years or over 20.35 59.12 22.73 0.00 28.75 28.03 8.33 20.97
20 years or below 2.12 0.73 0.00 20.78 0.73 1.52 0.00 0.00
Marital status Married 76.66 72.26 87.27 23.38 78.75 65.91 91.67 82.26 0.000
Unmarried 13.11 3.65 6.36 76.62 7.40 19.70 4.17 8.06
Divorced/Widowed/Separated 10.22 24.09 6.36 0.00 13.85 14.39 4.17 9.68
Education level Primary school or lower 18.51 45.99 22.73 0.00 23.85 24.24 12.50 25.81 0.000
Middle school or lower 14.18 16.06 14.55 0.00 15.00 19.70 16.67 9.68
High school 33.65 25.55 36.36 22.08 32.60 23.48 50.00 37.10
College or higher 33.65 12.41 26.36 77.92 28.54 32.58 20.83 27.42
Employment bystatus of worker Interim/Day labor 17.84 10.22 8.18 14.29 15.63 18.18 16.67 17.74 0.004
Regular 6.36 5.84 11.82 7.79 7.40 5.30 16.67 8.06
Employees 15.24 4.38 18.18 19.48 12.40 12.88 8.33 14.52
Other 60.56 79.56 61.82 58.44 64.58 63.64 58.33 59.68
Economic activity Activity 59.40 51.82 68.18 46.75 56.98 59.09 54.17 58.06 0.092
Non-activity 40.60 48.18 31.82 53.25 43.02 40.91 45.83 41.94
Income quartile Low 20.44 38.69 15.45 7.79 23.44 28.03 20.83 24.19 0.000
Low-middle 24.69 31.39 23.64 18.18 24.48 27.27 12.50 17.74
High-middle 27.00 11.68 28.18 29.87 25.21 25.00 33.33 27.42
High 27.87 18.25 32.73 44.16 26.88 19.70 33.33 30.65
Table 5.
Factors of influencing whether dental services utilization
Variables Classification Odds Ratio 95% CI
Gender Male 1
Female 1.074 0.969 1.190
Age 20-45 years 1
45-65 years 1.420*** 1.248 1.616
65 years or over 1.516*** 1.276 1.802
20 years or below 0.874 0.601 1.272
Marital status Married 1
Unmarried 1.230* 1.034 1.464
Divorced/Widowed/Separated 0.859 0.737 1.002
Education level Primary school or lower 1
Middle school or lower 1.325** 1.126 1.559
High school 1.204* 1.036 1.399
College or higher 1.116 0.984 1.389
Employment by Day labor 1
status of worker Regular 1.315* 1.050 1.648
Employees 1.221* 1.025 1.453
Other 1.052 0.904 1.224
Economic activity Activity 1
Non-activity 1.117 0.983 1.269
Income quartile Low 1
Low-middle 1.135 0.987 1.305
High-middle 1.208* 1.045 1.397
High 1.284** 1.103 1.495
Supplier factors 0.902* 0.816 0.997

P<.05, **P<.01, ***P<.001.

Table 6.
Factors of influencing on dental services utilization among dental user
Variables Classification Model 1 Model 2
e^b† Z dy/dx†† Z
Gender Male 1
Female 0.914* ―2.246 ―0.437* ―2.17
Age 20-45 years 1
45-65 years 1.226*** 3.954 1.037*** 3.95
65 years or over 1.247* 3.337 1.146* 3.41
20 years or below 1.003 0.022 0.027 0.04
Marital status Married 1
Unmarried 1.021 0.311 0.137 0.39
Divorced/Widowed/Separated 1.022 0.384 0.108 0.37
Education level Primary school or lower 1
Middle school or lower 0.897 ―1.777 ―0.545 ―1.77
High school 0.969 ―0.556 ―0.139 ―0.49
College or higher 0.931 ―1.096 ―0.325 ―0.99
Employment by status of worker Day labor 1
Regular 0.888 ―1.357 ―0.593 ―1.35
Employees 1.044 0.643 0.234 0.69
Other 1.055 0.914 0.271 0.92
Economic activity Activity 1
Non-activity 1.045 0.918 0.227 0.94
Income quartile Low 1
Low-middle 1.087 1.580 0.426 1.59
High-middle 1.023 0.417 0.102 0.36
High 0.964 ―0.609 ―0.196 ―0.66
Dentistry Operative dentistry 1
Prosthetics 1.053 0.628 0.262 0.63
Implants 1.783*** 7.212 2.944* 7.10
Orthodontics 1.948*** 6.424 3.297* 6.16
Periodontics 0.743*** ―7.367 ―1.486* ―7.19
Oral and maxillofacial surgery 0.575*** ―6.312 ―2.757* ―6.16
Preventive treatment 0.746* ―2.864 ―1.486* ―2.87
Provider 1.082* 2.044
Trust 0.755 0.75
listening courteously 0.815 0.72
Explanation 1.971* 2.04
Consultation hours ―0.151 ―0.23
Patient respect ―0.921 ―0.91

*P<.05, **P<.01, ***P<.001. note: e⁁b

† , exponential(b)=factor change in expected count for unit increase in X or factor change in odds for unit increase in X. note: dy/dx

†† , dy/dx for factor levels is the discrate change from the base level.

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