Association Between Toothache and Physician Diagnosis at Emergency Departments

Objectives: Toothache is the commonest symptoms reported by patients with dental problem, but the correlation between reason for visits (toothache) and non-traumatic dental condition visits as diagnosed by emergency department providers have not been explored. This study examined the correlation between reason for visit (toothache) and the ICD-9-codes-diagnosis designation by emergency department providers for NTDC visits in the United States.

Methods: We analyzed data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care survey for 1997 to 2007. We used multivariate logistic regression to determine the odds of a predictor being associated with outcome variable.

Results: Overall, 83% of the reason for visit (toothache) was related to the possible ICD-9-codes (primary diagnosis) specified by emergency department providers for NTDC visits. In the univariate, gender and payer type showed significant association between reason for visits (toothache) and ICD-9-codes designation. In the multivariable regression, payer type was the only significant predictor of the odds of an association between reason for visits (toothache) and ICD-9-codes designation for NTDC visit in emergency departments.

Conclusions: This study suggests that a substantial proportion of the patients presenting with toothache were closely matched with the ICD-9-code used to diagnose the NTDC visits. Payer type was the only significant predictor of ICD-9-codes designation for NTDC visit in emergency departments.