Abstract
Dental caries is the most prevalent disease in Norway and worldwide, and daily tooth brushing with fluoridated toothpaste is the main preventative measure when diets contain sugary foods. Tooth brushing is an important public health indicator, as the frequency of brushing also has been positively associated with good health in general. In Norway, brushing twice a day is the official recommendation. Our aim was to assess the frequency of tooth brushing among pupils in secondary school in two counties in western Norway, and to identify factors associated with brushing more than once a day. All 59 borough administrations in the two counties were invited to participate in the Ungdata survey in 2015-16; 26 agreed. In total 8,725 pupils filled in the electronic questionnaire (82%). Some 69% brushed their teeth more frequently than once a day, specifically 76% of whom were girls and 63% were boys (adjusted odds ratio=2.0). Of the boys, 6.5% did not brush daily. In 8-10th school grade 71% brushed more than once a day, compared to 65% in 11-13th grade. Out of 28 a priori selected factors, eight were independently associated with frequency of tooth brushing. Besides gender, the strongest associations observed were for frequency of brisk physical exercise, parents being informed about their adolescent’s whereabouts, and satisfaction with one’s own health.
Highlights
Dental caries is the most prevalent disease both worldwide and in Norway [1,2]
The frequency of tooth brushing more than once a day was lower in the two counties studied than in Norway as a whole (69.2% vs. 71.6%), and the difference was most pronounced at the upper-secondary level (65.2% vs. 69.1%) and among boys (62.5% vs. 65.5%)
The findings indicate that the proportion of adolescents brushing more than once day has decreased in this part of Norway since the early 1990s, among both boys and girls [17]
Summary
Dental caries is the most prevalent disease both worldwide and in Norway [1,2]. The key to preventing and controlling caries is to change dietary habits and health behaviour. Caries can be viewed as a behavioural disease influenced by factors that are socio-economically determined [5]. When diets include sugary foods and beverages, daily tooth brushing with fluoridated toothpaste is the main primary prevention against caries [6,7]. Frequency of brushing has been associated with periodontal disease [8,9,10], and with better health status in general [11,12,13,14]. Tooth brushing is both an imperative preventive health measure and an important public health indicator
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