Childhood dental visits and self-reported adult oral health

Objective: Assess the association between childhood dental visits and self-reported problems with mouth and gums in adulthood. Methods: Data came from the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), two birth cohort studies following individuals born in the UK throughout their lives. Information on dental visits was collected at three points during childhood; and at adulthood, participants answered two questions regarding problems with their mouth and gums in the last year or persistently since age 16. The association between number of childhood dental visits and self-reported mouth and gums problems was tested in logistic regression models, crude and adjusted for socio-demographic factors and cohort year. Results: 15,885 participants were included in the analysis. Odds of persistent and last-year self-reported problems with mouth and gums decreased as the number of dental visits during childhood increased. The fully adjusted models showed participants visiting the dentist three times having 24% (OR: 0.76, 95%CI 0.59-0.98) lower odds of self-reported persistent mouth and gums problems; similarly, those visiting the dentist one, two and three times during childhood, were 26% (OR: 0.74; 95%CI 0.59-0.94), 25% (OR: 0.75; 95%CI 0.60-0.95), and 27% (OR:0.73; 95%CI 0.55-0.97) less likely to report problems with mouth and gums in the previous year as those who never visited the dentist. Conclusion: Regular dental visits during childhood are linked to fewer self-reported oral health problems in adulthood.