Intervals for oral health examinations among Finnish children and adolescents: recommendations for the future

✍ Scribed by Dr. S. M. Lahti; H. W. Hausen; E. Widström; A. Eerola

• Publisher: FDI World Dental Federation
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 462 KB
• Volume: 51
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-6539
• DOI: 10.1002/j.1875-595x.2001.tb00822.x

✦ Synopsis

Aim:

To review the frequency of routine annual dental examinations for children in finland and to make recommendations for appropriate examination intervals for children and adolescents.

Method:

The national research and development centre for welfare and health in finland appointed an expert group to prepare a review.

Results:

According to the literature, examination intervals for individuals with low caries risk can be extended to 1.5-2.0 years without jeopardising their oral health. if implemented, this would lead to a saving of 15% in treatment and examination times for children. although there is no accurate measure for identifying high-risk individuals, a considerable proportion of low-risk children can be identified fairly accurately.

Conclusions:

The expert group recommended prolonging the average examination intervals to 1.5-2.0 years, taking into account the risk of each individual, the local distribution of oral health problems and cost-effective use of resources. part of the savings could be redirected to children with high levels of dental need and/or at risk of dropping out from the oral health services.