Seventy-eight inner city mothers of third and fourth grade children in three racial groupswhite, black, and American Indian-known to need dental treatment for disease on permanent teeth, were interviewed at home by a trained community resident interviewer. Sixty-two per cent of the mothers were on public assistance. Information relating to the mothers' perceptions of the importance and value of dental care both for herself and for her children were collected. Utilization data were obtained via two dental examinations conducted one year apart. Data were also collected from a sample of provider dentists via mail questionnaire. A yield of 315 usable questionnaires was obtained, a return rate of 53 per cent.Provider-dentists felt that low socioeconomic con-
This paper studied the correlation among a number of personal, pre‐dental and dental academic variables and sutdent's own personal oral hygiene. Oral hygiene status of 127 second year dental student was meadured accouding to O'Leary, Drake and Naylor (1972). The overall mean plaque score was 46.7% . Only 18.8 % of the students had excellent and good oral hygiene, while 63% of them had poor and very poororal hygiene. There were negative relationships approaching significance between the plaque score of students and their first year dental grade point avderage and second year dental grade point average. A significant negative correlation was observed between plaque score and test scores in Periodontology I. Students who had a better oral hyginene status tended ot obtain higher grades in periodontology I An analysis of the variance for the mean of each of the eleven variables as classified by oral hygiene status was performed. In general, students with better oral hygiene tended to achieve significantly gigher test scores than those students with less favorable oral hygiene in at least seven of the stated academic variables.
A version of the Semantic Differential was used to sample attitudes of 350 children in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades of 2 elementary schools. Compared to the other schools in the same city, School 1 was low on socioeconomic indicators, School 2 was near the median. Children in School 1 had significantly higher evaluative scores for "my school books," "having to keep quiet," "following rules," and "my school building." Children in School 2 were significantly more positive toward "my teacher," "father," and "college student." As grade in school increased, evaluative scores became significantly less positive for a variety of stimuli, including "my school books," "my classroom," "my teacher," and "me." Attitudes toward several stimuli were similar for boys and girls in School I but markedly different for boys and girls in School 2.
Dr. Samuels and her group present some interesting reactios of parents, with high and low socio‐economic levels, in regard to the expression of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the dentists who treat their children.
The purpose of this study was to investigate further the relationship between intake of sucrose‐containing foods and the prevalence of caries in a natural population of children. The study population was made up of 958 Caucasian third grade children from Minneapolis. Diet and brushing information was collected through personal interviews with the children. Four methods of coding diet information were used: (1) Confection Counting (the number of sucrose‐containing items consumed during a 24‐hour period); (2) Exposure Counting (to collapse sucrose‐containing items consumed in a 30‐min interval into one sucrose exposure); (3) Minneapolis Oral Retention Estimate (an assessment of usual consumption, 24‐hour recall, brushing and consumption of water to estimate likelihood that the individual had sucrose in the oral cavity during a typical day); and (4) “Hidden” Sugar Estimate (utilization of food composition tables to estimate in teaspoons how much sucrose was consumed during a 24‐hour period). The study shows few, if any, relationships existing between consumption of sucrose‐containing foods and def or DMF teeth in both mealtime and between‐meal periods.
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