Odontólogos del Registro Nacional de Prestadores Individuales de Salud

Objective

To characterise dentists who practice in Chile, enrolled in the National Register of Individual Providers.

Material and method

Descriptive and cross-sectional study conducted with the database of the National Register of Individual Providers of the Superintendency of Health, requested through the Transparency Law.

Results

In September 2014, there were 15,901 registered dentists, of whom 54% were male, and graduated from 1945 onwards. Their mean age was 42.9 ±11.46 years. The large majority (89.6%) of Chilean dentists studied in Chile, 73% of them in traditional universities, and 7.3% of registered professionals are foreigners, most of whom studied abroad. For them, the most common route of degree equivalency is through agreements with the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The traditional university with most graduates is the University of Chile, while Universidad Mayor is the private university with most graduates. In the last 5 years, the total number of graduates from private universities surpassed the total of graduates from traditional universities. There are 4,339 specialty records in the register, 49% of them certified in the period 2009-2013. The most common specialty is orthodontics (19.5% of the total). The most common route of certification is a university degree.

Conclusions

This study is one of the few with official, non-speculative information about dentists in Chile. We believe that the National Register of Individual Providers should improve access and registration of their data, with the purpose of properly characterising these professionals, demographically and academically.