Around one in three Danes aged between 18 and 29 are avoiding going to the dentist because of the cost involved, according to a recent survey from YouGov.
The research showed that 30 per cent of people in that age bracket have avoided the dentist’s chair in the past two years because they feared how much it would set them back. Sixty-eight per cent, however, said that they had visited the dentist in that time, while two per cent admitted they didn’t know when the last time they had their teeth checked was.
But refusing to spend the money now may result in a much larger bill later on, according to Freddie Sloth-Lisbjerg, head of the dentists’ association Tandlaegeforeningen. He explained that it pained dentists to hear of people avoiding getting their teeth checked because every month he had to do root canal treatments or pull teeth out that would have been avoided had the patients seen them earlier.
He added that he normally informed people that it wasn’t as expensive as they thought, pointing out that a large cavity cost around 1,600 kroner, while a small one cost just 400 kroner.
Sloth-Lisbjerg confessed that the cost of getting work done was quite expensive, but revealed that as of next year, Danes will receive phone calls to be informed if they hadn’t visited the dentist in two years, with the hope that it could prevent many people having have serious dental procedures.