DENTAL-CARIES DETERMINANTS IN AN ADULT PORTUGUESE POPULATION AND A COMPARISON WITH NORWEGIAN ADULTS

The present epidemiologic dental caries study indicates a high number of decayed surfaces (mean, 13.5 +/- 11.8 (SD)) in a Portuguese populat ion of 30- to 39-year-olds from Porto. The most influential determinan ts for variation in carious surfaces were oral hygiene, gender, saliva ry buffer capacity, and missing teeth. By entering the most influentia l independent variables in a final multiple classification analysis, t he total explained variance in carious surfaces was 27%. A comparison with results from a similar Norwegian dental health study showed that the biologic factors of importance for number of carious surfaces were the same, whereas the sociocultural determinants differed.