Zero to five years: First dental visit.

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Dentistry
• Public Health

Background:

• First dental visits are crucial for establishing oral health habits in preschool children.
• Understanding the determinants of these initial visits is essential for targeted public health interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the mean age and primary reasons for the first dental visit among preschool children in Turkey.
• To investigate the influence of family income and parental education on the timing and reasons for these initial visits.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 519 preschool children (aged 0-5 years) without prior dental experience.
• Data collected via questionnaire included child's age, reasons for visit, family income, parental education, and satisfaction with oral health information.

Main Results:

• The mean age for the first dental visit was 3.62 years; only 2.9% visited before age 1.
• Pain (36.4%) was the leading reason, followed by check-ups (23.1%) and parental observation of decay (15.6%).
• Children from low-income families were significantly more likely to visit due to pain (p=0.002). Parental education and income did not significantly impact visit age or reasons.

Conclusions:

• Awareness campaigns targeting parents and pediatricians are vital to promote timely and preventive first dental visits.
• Addressing socioeconomic disparities may be necessary to reduce pain-related emergency dental visits in young children.