Caries in the preschool child: aetiology

Dental caries status of preschool children in Hong Kong

“…20 A dental programme for providing preventive care and early interceptive treatment to preschool children in Hong Kong needs to be developed. The finding that the children's caries status was related to their socio-economic background is in agreement with many overseas studies, 12,21,22 previous surveys in Hong Kong 5,23 and also the latest survey in UK. 9 Our study result also supports a previous study in Sweden 24 which showed that toothbrushing frequency of preschool children was related to their caries status.…”

“…9 However, this is lower than the findings of recent surveys conducted in the more affluent parts of China such as Guangdong 7 and Beijing, 10 and in other Asian developing countries such as Thailand 11 and Malaysia. 12 The lower caries level among Hong Kong children is probably related to water fluoridation and the availability of different fluoride agents like fluoride toothpaste in Hong Kong. The possible reasons for the relatively high dmft found in Beijing and Thailand has been reported.…”

“…Thus, the dental knowledge score could range from 0 to 21. The parents were then categorised into three groups according to their dental knowledge scores -poor (scored 0-7), moderate (scored [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and good (scored [15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Parents' attitude to dental care was assessed by asking what they would do if their child had toothache -bring the child to see a dentist, give pain-killer to the child, give herbal medicine, or other actions.…”

Prevalência de cárie dentária em crianças da faixa etária de 0 a 6 anos matriculadas em creches: importância de fatores socioeconômicos

“…Em todas as idades, o índice ceos foi maior nas crianças do grupo de Bauru, com significância estatística nas faixas etárias de 3-4 e 5-6 anos (p≤0,001). Os padrões de ocorrência encontram-se de acordo com a literatura, quanto à progressão conforme a idade 5,12,15,30,31,32,38 . Figura 3 -Número médio de dentes presentes nas crianças de Bauru e São Paulo, por faixa etária.…”

“…A melhoria do cuidado durante os anos pré-escolares reduziria a necessidade de restaurações ou extrações 44 , uma vez que a cárie é considerada uma doença da infância 12 .…”