A study of dentists' opinion about caries treatment of 1-3- year-old children.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the present study was to examine the opinion of dentists from Plovdiv about the problems connected with treating caries of children one to three years of age.


METHODS
The study included 129 dentists from Plovdiv. It was carried out by a direct group inquiry. A special questionnaire was prepared. The data obtained were analysed by non-parametrical and graphical analysis.


RESULTS
The results showed that 49.60% of the inquired dentists did not treat one- to three-year-old children. 21.70% of them referred to psychological problems among children as a preventive reason; 14.00% - lack of suitable methods; 10.00% felt they were not well-trained in this field and 19.40% answered that they did not take pleasure in working with this group of patients. The greatest difficulties in treating children were met by the dentists general practitioners and those without specialty.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study prove the necessity of additional qualification for the general practising dentists together with the development of methods for dental caries treatment that are easy to use in early childhood.
Dimitrova
M M
MM
Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Higher Medical Institute, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Kukleva
M P
MP
Stoykova
M S
MS
D001294:Attitude to Health; D002031:Bulgaria; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003815:Dentists; D006801:Humans; D010377:Pediatric Dentistry; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires