Practice activity trends among Australian private general dental practitioners: 1983-84 to 1998-99.

Aim: To investigate time trends in practice activity.
Design: Four cross-sectional surveys across a 15 year period.
Setting: Australian private general practice.
Participants: A random sample of dentists.
Methods: Dentists were surveyed by mailed questionnaire in 1983, 1988, 1993 and 1998 (response rates 71%-75%). Data were weighted to provide representative estimates for the age by sex distribution of private general practitioners in 1983, 1988, 1993 and 1998.
Main Outcome Measures: Hours per year worked, patient visits per hour and patient visits per year.
Results: The number of patient visits per year declined across the period, related to parallel decreases in the number of patient visits per hour (ANOVA; P<0.05), while there was no significant difference during the period in the number of hours per year devoted to work. The interaction of dentist sex by time of survey indicated that while numbers of patient visits per year had remained stable for female dentists, there was a trend for the higher number of patient visits per year among male dentists at the beginning of the survey period to decline over time.
Conclusions: Male dentists had higher levels of practice activity compared with female dentists, but a decline in the number of patient visits per year reflected a convergence of male practice patterns towards that of female dentists.