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Dental Health Program for Schoolchildren in a Rural Village Lacking a Dentist

1978; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5834/jdh.28.169

2189-7379

Okiuji Takagi, Hiroyuki Inoue, Katsuhiko Taura, Katsuyoshi SHIROTO, Masaki Iwakura, Mitsuo Tsukada, Yoshihiro Shimada, Hideaki Mayanagi, Koei Igarashi,

Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies

This study was undertaken to estimate the effect of a dental health program for schoolchildren in a rural village where there was no dentist.The dental health program consisted of annual dental inspections followed by the extractions of advanced carious teeth and the fillings of early carious lesions of permanent teeth for 5 years from 1972 to 1976. The subjects of this program were primary schoolchildren of 6 to 11 years of age in Koromogawa village, and the findings were compared with the children of a primary school in Sendai where dental care was readily available.When base-line data between the two groups of children was compared, no marked difference was found in the prevalence of DMF but the restoration rate was significantly lower and the tooth fatality rate due to dental caries was significantly higher in the children of Koromogawa than in those of Sendai. After the 5-year program, while the restoration rate of the Koromogawa children increased markedly and became statistically higher than that of the Sendai children, the tooth fatality rate of the Koromogawa children decreased considerably and reached the same level as that of the Sendai children.At the same time, the experience of dental pain in the subjects was surveyed 3 times be fore, during, and after the program using a questionnaire form. The prevalence rate of dental pain for Koromogawa children before the program was aparently higher than for Sendai children, but after the program the rate for Koromogawa children decreased markedly and became lower than for Sendai children.We concluded that annual dental inspections followed by the extractions of advanced carious teeth and the fillings of early carious lesions was effective in obtaining good dental health for schoolchildren in a remote area.