A descriptive and comparative study of oral health in 8-year-old Swedish children

The aim of the study was to assess the oral health of a group of children, and to compare the findings with the results from an investigation performed 4 years earlier in children of the same age and living in the same area. The material consisted of 149 randomly selected 8-year-old children. The study included examination of caries and the state of the gingival conditions, enamel hypoplasia and opacities, supragingival calculus and extrinsic stains. Determinations were also made of the rate of secretion, pH and buffer effect of stimulated saliva. Socio-economic data and anamnestic dental data were noted. The investigation showed a decrease in caries frequency in the primary teeth, but not in the permanent teeth, during the four-year-period. As in the former investigation, regression analyses showed a negative correlation between the level of education of the parents and caries indices, and that the variation of the gingival indices could be explained by socio-economic factors. In addition, a negative correlation was found between the caries index for primary teeth and the rate of secretion of the saliva and the presence of supragingival calculus.