Mouthrinse Program Research Articles

Acceptance by children of a daily home mouthrinse program

This paper reports on the effects of an experiment which compares three motivational conditions to influence seventh grade urban and suburban children to use an acidulated topical mouthrinse at home each day over 20 weeks. The three conditions are information (control), rewards and group discussion. Analysis is made of volunteering, bringing in parental permission slips and picking up ten bottles of mouthrinse at two-week intervals. The key findings are as follows: (1) The rewards condition was significantly superior to the group discussion condition and to the information condition. (2) The group discussion condition was significantly inferior to the information condition. (3) Whether a child was from an urban or suburban school did not significantly affect staying in the program until the end. Neither did school location affect the number of bottles picked up. (4) Most children used a maximal number of doses of mouthrinse while they remained in the program whether they dropped out early or late. Neither motivational condition nor location affected average number of doses used. (5) On a temporal basis, (a) a higher % of children in the rewards than in the information condition volunteered, obtained parental permission, and picked up bottles at seven of the ten pickup periods; (b) a higher % of children in the rewards than in the discussion condition picked up bottles beginning at bottle handout number 2; (c) beginning at bottle handout number 5, a smaller % of children from the discussion than from the information condition picked up bottles. These results are discussed along with comparable results obtained from a previous experiment which used the same experimental conditions to influence 7th grade children to take three topical fluoride treatments over an 11 month period. Discussion focuses on the relevance of these data for understanding and predicting health behavior which must be carried out repetitively over long periods of time.

A SCHOOL FLUORIDE MOUTHRINSE PROGRAM

A SCHOOL FLUORIDE MOUTHRINSE PROGRAM

Benefits and prognoses following 10 years of a fluoride mouthrinsing program

This paper is based upon the mean annual amounts of fillings (filled surfaces) and the DMFS among 6/7- to 15/16-year-old children. Each age group comprised about 450 children. Cross-sectional recordings were available prior to the start of a caries-preventive program based on 2-weekly fluoride rinses. Cross-sectional and longitudinal DMFS recordings were different during the 10 years of observation. This indicates benefits exceeding the present 70% reduction in need for fillings and 50% improved caries prevalence. The ratio fillings needed for giving the DMFS score among 13- to 14-year-old children was found to improve from 1.60 to 1.16. Based on the cumulative amounts of fillings and the ratio of fillings/DMFS, a DMFS of 15 may be expected in 4 years among children 15-16 years old. This caries prevalence is not markedly different from DMFS recordings among Scandinavian children living in fluoride areas.

Caries experience as predictor for caries incidence.

The caries increment (filled surfaces) from the ages 7 to 15 years were compared in children with three or fewer (low prevalence group) or eight or more filled surfaces (high prevalence group) at the age of 8. The children participated in a fortnightly fluoride mouthrinsing program (10 ml of 0.2% NaF). Following 8 years of dental treatment and caries prophylaxis, the caries increments were 11.4 (s.d. = 7.7, n = 23 subjects) and 17.1 (s.d. = 9.6, n = 39 subjects) surfaces, i.e. significantly different (t = 2.376). Significantly (t = 4.034) more fillings had been required in the high than in the low prevalence group (31.1 +/- 17.1 vs. 15.5 +/- 9.6). The "risk group" could be identified at the ages of 7 to 8 by high caries prevalence and high ratio fillings/caries increment. Social class and number of teeth accounted more for the initial caries prevalence than for the caries increment. Correlation analyses revealed a significant, but not strong (r = 0.50), association between caries prevalence at the age of 7 and increment of fillings.