Capability of a national epidemiological survey to predict general dental service treatment

The aim of this investigation was to examine the relationship between the dental status of tooth surfaces, as recorded during the 1978 Adult Dental Health Survey, and the treatment dental attenders subsequently received. A year after the survey, almost twice as many surfaces had been filled than were predicted on the basis of the survey. After 3 yr, this had risen to a 3.5-fold difference. Despite this, 59% of the restorative need identified by the survey criteria remained unmet by the end of the 1st yr; 46% was unmet by the end of the 3rd yr. A surface that received a filling for the first time was three times more likely to have been identified as in need of filling during the survey than a surface which was refilled. These findings cast doubt upon the usefulness of the epidemiological survey as a tool for predicting restorative treatment, and show that maintenance of previous fillings was particularly poorly forecast by the survey data.