Dental care of young adults in West Sweden

107 Swedish subjects, all 20 years old, were studied for the first three ye ars (1990-1992) after they had left the organised dental care for children and adolescents (which is free of charge for all youth through the age of 1 9). They were registered in four different risk-grouping systems in order t o estimate the amount of their future dental care. Three of the systems use d registrations from the Public Dental Service records and in the fourth on e a dentist made a subjective estimation. The follow-up used dental insuran ce claims to study performed treatments, courses of treatments and cost. Th e risk group system that used subjective estimations appeared to be the one that most accurately predicted the actual dental care consumption. Approxi mately 70% of the subjects received some kind of dental care during the thr ee years. The distribution was not confined to any particular risk group. T en per cent had received complete dental care annually. Twenty-five per cen t went to a private dentist and 75% continued to go to the Public Dental Se rvice. Those who went to a private dentist received substantially more trea tment and the annual cost was a little more than twice as much as in the Pu blic Dental Service.