Half of Portugal’s population failed to visit the dentist for a year

Nearly half of Portugal’s population failed to visit a dentist in 2017. This is above the EU average of 45% but hardly an impressive result.

According to data now released by Eurostat, 34% of Portuguese go to the dentist once or twice a year but many simply don’t bother.

Regarding general medicine, most Portuguese patients (44%) go to the doctor once or twice a year. This also is above the EU average, which stood at 37.6% for Europeans who go to the general practitioner once or twice a year.

Eurostat notes that “at EU level, the frequency of general practitioner visits was higher for women than for men”, which was also the case for “visits to dentists or GPs.”

For visits to the Doctor, “Denmark had the largest proportion of people who saw their doctor six times or more – at 49%.”