The purpose of this article was to document the 1-month dental pain prevalence in 11-14-yr-old subjects attending Grade Six of middle schools in Peshawar, Pakistan, and to explore the effect of dental pain and the impact on daily living on dental care-seeking. A self-completed questionnaire survey of all 13 middle schools in University Town, Peshawar, Pakistan, was carried out in April 2007. Questionnaire items on dental pain were adapted from the dental pain screening questionnaire (DePaQ) and items on the impact on daily living were adapted from the child-oral impact on daily performance (OIDP-Child) questionnaire. Regression analysis was carried out to determine the relative usefulness of predictors for care-seeking. The prevalence of dental pain was estimated to be 30.4%, and care-seeking in those reporting pain was estimated to be 64%. Care-seeking was associated with 'pain felt in one tooth', 'painful tooth felt loose', 'difficulties sleeping', and 'difficulties playing', which accounted for 35% of the explained variance. The findings substantiate dental pain as an important dental public health concern in Pakistan and support the hypothesis that assessment of dental pain characteristics can add to the accuracy of dental need estimation.