One-third of the UK population is composed of problem-oriented dental attenders, seeking dental care only when they have acute dental
pain or problems. Patients seek urgent dental care from a range of health care professionals, including general medical practitioners. This
study aimed to identify trends in dental attendance at Welsh medical practices over a 44-y period, specifically in relation to dental policy
change and factors associated with repeat attendance. A retrospective observational study was completed via the nationwide Secure
Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank of visits to general medical practice in Wales. Read codes associated with dental
diagnoses were extracted for patients attending their general medical practitioner between 1974 and 2017. Data were analyzed with
descriptive statistics and univariate and multivariable logistic regression. Over the 44-y period, there were 439,361 dental Read codes,
accounting for 288,147 patient attendances. The overall attendance rate was 2.60 attendances per 1,000 patient-years (95% CI, 2.59 to
2.61). The attendance rate was negligible through 1987 but increased sharply to 5.0 per 1,000 patient-years in 2006 (95% CI, 4.94 to
5.09) before almost halving to 2.6 per 1,000 in 2017 (95% CI, 2.53 to 2.63) to a pattern that coincided with changes to National Health
Service policies. Overall 26,312 patients were repeat attenders and were associated with living in an area classified as urban and deprived
(odds ratio [OR], 1.22; 95% CI, 1.19 to 1.25; P < 0.0001) or rural (OR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.83 to 0.85; P < 0.0001). Repeat attendance was
associated with greater odds of having received an antibiotic prescription (OR, 2.53; 95% CI, 2.50 to 2.56; P < 0.0001) but lower odds of
having been referred to another service (OR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.70 to 0.81; P < 0.0001). Welsh patients’ reliance on medical care for dental
problems was influenced by social deprivation and health policy. This indicates that future interventions to discourage dental attendance at
medical practitioners should be targeted at those in the most deprived urban areas or rural areas. In addition, health policy may influence
attendance rates positively and negatively and should be considered in the future when decisions related to policy change are made