The dental caries status of Scottish adolescents reported to be regular attenders. Initial results from a primary dental care based research network.

Aim To investigate the caries status of, and the delivery of care to, a gro up of regularly attending adolescent dental patients. To conduct research i n primary dental care. A subsidiary aim was to compare the caries status of this sample to population samples. Setting General dental practices across Scotland. Design A 3-year cohort study. Subjects 41 volunteer general dental practitioners and 616 adolescent patie nts (mean age = 12.1 years at baseline) defined by the practitioners as 're gular' attenders. Results All practices remained in the study. 403 subjects were seen at both baseline and final examination and 329 were examined at all 4 annual exami nations. The mean D3MFT (dentine caries threshold) was 1.8 at baseline and 3.9 at the final examination, three years later. Of the 541 subjects seen a t baseline 62% had experienced either restored or unrestored dentinal carie s. Thirty-four percent of all those examined at baseline had all the unrest ored dentinal caries. The majority of the disease was to be found in the mo lar teeth, particularly the first permanent molars. The provision of sealan ts was relatively high with 85% of subjects having at least one sealed toot h by the final examination. Although disease levels were related to socio-e conomic status, the Care Index was not. Conclusions The 'regularly attending' subjects had a better normative level of dental health than their peers in the Scottish population. However, wid e variation was found. The project also demonstrated the feasibility of und ertaking research in partnership with general dental practitioners.