Perception of dental and other individual problems: adolescents versus young adults.
The importance of dental problems in comparison with general health problems and psychological problems was judged by 642 adolescents. The methods used were paired comparison and direct ranking of nine stimuli. Adolescents were quite consistent in their choices. The agreement within the group was statistically significant. Adolescents judged dental problems as less important than general health problems and as more important than psychological problems. The correlation between the methods of paired comparison and direct ranking was high. The results were compared retrospectively with findings from a study of 51 older subjects. Adolescents and adults did not differ much from each other except for the ordering of the nine problems. Adults ranked dental problems as the least important.
Assink
M H
MH
Department of Social Dentistry and Dental Health Education, Academic Centre for Dentistry, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Verhey
J G
JG
Hoogstraten
J
J
Goedhart
H
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001294:Attitude to Health; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000523:psychology; D003824:Denture, Complete / Q000523:psychology; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000523:psychology; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011595:Psychomotor Agitation / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013272:Stomach Diseases / Q000523:psychology; D014076:Tooth Diseases / Q000523:psychology*; D014098:Toothache / Q000523:psychology