According to the results of the Survey on Living Conditions and Income carried out in 2025, 79.5% of the population aged 16 and over reported having had at least one general and family medicine consultation in the 12 months prior to the interview, 59.6% a dental consultation and 53.3% a consultation with another specialty. In all three cases, women reported having had more medical consultations than men: 84.1% in the case of general and family medicine, 62.4% for dental care and 59.9% for other specialties (respectively, 74.5%, 56.4% and 46.0% for men).
The proportion of people who reported having had medical consultations, whether in general and family medicine, or in other specialties, increased as the age group advanced, the same was not true in the case of dental care, where the proportion of users is substantially higher in the younger age groups. Oral health monitoring was higher for higher education levels and for the employed population, and lower for the population at risk of poverty.
The results for 2025 reveal that, in Portugal, the proportion of people whose need for examination or treatment was not met was 3.8% for medical care and 10.2% for dental care. The main reason for not having medical exams/treatments was waiting lists (1.5% in relation to the total number of persons aged 16 and over), while the main reason for not having dental exams/treatments was lack of financial availability (7.7%).
The proportion of households that assessed the financial burden of dental care as heavy in 2025 (47.2%) was higher than that observed for the costs of medicines (45.7%) and, above all, medical care (39.3%). The negative assessment of the weight of financial burdens with dental care and medicines was higher in the case of households at risk of poverty and in households with elderly people.
