Dental treatments, care, and services (the decision context) vs No comparator: Out-of-pocket payment / cost as a factor of choice
- Population
- (Potential) patients with freedom of choice regarding dental treatments, including parents and caregivers deciding for children or elderly; patients with special needs excluded
- Intervention
- Dental treatments, care, and services (the decision context)
- Comparison
- No comparator
- Outcome
- Out-of-pocket payment / cost as a factor of choice
Out-of-pocket payment (cost) was the most frequently reported factor influencing patients' dental treatment decisions (N=136 articles; ungraded).
What each review found
Include earlier review versions| Finding | Effect | Studies | GRADE certainty |
|---|---|---|---|
Dental treatments, care, and services (the decision context) vs None (no comparator defined) Out-of-pocket payment / cost as a factor of choice · (Potential) patients with freedom of choice regarding dental treatments, including parents and caregivers deciding for… · Multiple countries (UK, Saudi Arabia, USA, India, Brazil, Turkey, Germany, Canada, etc.) Out-of-pocket payment (cost) was the most frequently reported factor influencing patients' dental treatment decisions (N=136 articles; ungraded). Decision-making regarding dental treatments - What factors matter from patients' perspective? A systematic… (2025) All outcomes | 'Out-of-pocket payment' (and synonyms, e.g., 'cost') was the most frequently identified factor: mentioned in N=136 articles with the highest code frequency (n=151); most prevalent factor in 7 of the 8 countries with… | 136 studies | GRADE not reported |
Findings are shown side by side, never pooled across reviews.
The reviews
| Review | Searched up to | Included studies | AMSTAR 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decision-making regarding dental treatments - What factors matter from patients' perspective? A systematic review. 2025 All outcomes | 2007 to January 2021 (initial search 2007 to 2018; update search 2019 to January 2021) | 128 | Not applicable |
Studies behind the findings
The primary studies the full-text reviews tie to this outcome. Reviews with headline outcomes only do not list them here.
- Determinants of Postponed Dental Visits Due to Costs: Evidence from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Germany. · 2019 · included by 1 of these review
- Beyond price: individuals' accounts of deciding to pay for private healthcare treatment in the UK. · 2012 · included by 1 of these review
- Wall 2014 · included by 1 of these review
How reviews are matched to this question
Reviews word the same question differently. Four decision models (TypeSafe's Jev, Liquid AI's d1-ultra, SubQ Snap and Baseten's Elephant) judged each wording of the population, intervention, comparator and outcome against the others; two wordings count as the same when at least three of them agree and none clearly disagrees, and findings count as this question only when all four elements match. Timing, setting and subgroup never split a question: they are shown on each finding.