Awareness of tooth erosion in 12 year old children and primary care dental practitioners.
OBJECTIVE
To compare the knowledge of tooth erosion in a sample of 12 year old children with that of the dentists responsible for their care and also to compare the giving and receiving of advice concerning erosion.


METHODS
A random sample of 1753 children from all 62 state maintained schools in Leicestershire completed questionnaires. Questionnaires were also sent to the 257 General Dental Practitioners in Leicestershire.


RESULTS
1686 (96.2%) of children and 227 (82.5%) of dentists returned forms that could be analysed. 36% of dentists reported that they frequently noticed erosion on the teeth of their patients but 67.7% of dentists believed that less than 25% of 12 year olds had any erosion. 67.5% of dentists advised their patients about erosion only occasionally or rarely. Only 34.2% of the children had heard of tooth erosion and only 8.4% could recall their dentist mentioning the condition. 40% of children believed that the best way to avoid erosion was regular tooth brushing.


CONCLUSIONS
The levels of awareness were low for both dentists and patients and the messages that were given by dentists were either forgotten or misunderstood by the children, or they were incorrect. Better communication and understanding is needed in this important area.
Dugmore
C R
CR
School of Dentistry, Birmingham, UK.
Rock
W P
WP
D002648:Child; D004739:England; D005260:Female; D005792:General Practice, Dental / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019239:Practice Patterns, Dentists' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014077:Tooth Erosion / Q000523:psychology*