Objective To develop a brief and simple, easy‐to‐administer, culturally sensitive, reliable and valid risk scoring system for early childhood caries based only on behavioural and other nonclinical risk factors. The purpose was to allow risk scoring by child care providers without clinical examination in order to guide dental referral in a community setting. Methods A cross‐sectional study using stratified multistage cluster sampling was conducted among 559 preschool children and their mothers in Anganwadi centres and Preprimary schools in Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala, India. All steps in the development of a new tool were carried out. Exploratory factor analysis and principal component analysis with Varimax rotation were employed for item reduction. Reliability and validity assessments were also performed. Past caries experience was recorded as dmft scores and the validity hypothesis of higher dmft scores in children with higher caries risk scores was also verified as an additional measure of construct validity. Results The newly developed Caries Risk Assessment and Referral Tool (CRA‐RT) is presented as a unidimensional, 11‐item, discriminative tool which showed high test‐retest reliability (ICC = 0.8), high inter‐rater reliability (ICC = 0.8) and acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.6). Face, content and construct validity have been demonstrated. Children with higher CRA‐RT scores were having higher dmft scores, and it provided an additional evidence for the construct validity of the tool. Conclusion CRA‐RT is a simple, valid and reliable novel risk scoring system for ECC, to be used in a nondental, nonmedical setting. The proposed tool contains those behavioural risk or protective factors, the presence or absence of which could be assessed by interviewing the mother. The quick and the easy risk scoring pattern with a cut‐off score can guide the dental referral of preschool children by child care providers in a community setting.

AimThe purpose of the study is to establish baseline normative data regarding facial soft tissue profile measurements in preschool children of Thiruvananthapuram.Materials and methodsThe present study was a cross-sectional study conducted at the Department of Pedodontics, Government Dental College, Thiruvanthapuram. Two hundred fifty children of 3 to 5 years of age reporting at the outpatient department with complete primary dentition and flush terminal plane molar relation were the sampling unit. Children with mixed dentition, with the a presence of proximal caries and any oral habit and maxillofacial trauma/pathology/developmental defects, were not included in the study. The level of significance for the study was set as p < 0.05.ResultsMean values of the study variable with standard deviation obtained with a narrow range of 95% the confidence interval indicated higher accuracy of the study.ConclusionThe values obtained in the study can be used as a reference for an initial orthodontic evaluation of a child during the early mixed dentition period. The study will help in predicting the direction of growth of the dentofacial region, its effect on facial parameters, and, hence, the treatment plan can be modified accordingly. The study will serve as the reference study for further studies with molar plane relation other than FTP.How to cite this articleGautam B, Sreedharan S, et al. Photographic Profile Analysis in Preschool Children of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2019;12(2):111–115.