The oral health of children of dentists

Abstract

ABSTRACT – In order to assess the long term effect of dental health education, the gingival state and dental conditions of 68 dentists' children aged 11.4 ± 3.4 years were compared with those of their age‐ and sex‐matched classmates from (a) parents with anoUier academic education of corresponding length, and (b) parents with no academic or high school education. A tendency for bleeding of the gingival margins at pressure was observed most often in children with non‐academic parents and was least frequent in dentists' children. The reported frequency of toothbrushing being the same in all three groups, it was suggested that the efficacy of the brushing among the dentists' children must be superior to that of the others. Also the DMF scores were found to be lowest in the group of dentists' children. The non‐academic children correspondingly presented the lowest frequency of intact first molars. The study confirmed the already accepted view that the educational level of the parents correlates positively with the dental health of their children. The finding that dentists' children are even better off than children of other academic parents was concluded to justify an intensification of dental health education in future dental care.