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Patterns of attendance of children under 12 years at school dental service in Western Australia

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Open access
Authors
Lam, S.
Baros, H.
O'Grady, M.
Kendall, Garth
Messer, L.
Slack-Smith, L.
Date
2012
Type
Journal Article

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Lam, S.P.L. and Baros, H. and O'Grady, M.J and Kendall, G.E. and Messer, L.B. and Slack-Smith, L.M. 2012. Patterns of attendance of children under 12 years at school dental service in Western Australia. The Open Dentistry Journal. 6: pp. 69-73.
Source Title
The Open Dentistry Journal
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School
School of Nursing and Midwifery
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This article is published under the Open Access publishing model and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Please refer to the licence to obtain terms for any further reuse or distribution of this work.

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Abstract

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the patterns of attendance at School Dental Service (SDS) and reasons for attendance (treatment or prevention) for children in the Perth Metropolitan Area, in particular investigating the first year of SDS attendance and attendance until the year the child turned 12. The first 150 SDS records located for children from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study were used for this study. Patterns of attendance of children at SDS were described, as were associated factors (enrolment, age and nature of first visit, general nature of visits and number of visits) until the end of the year that the child turned 12. The age of the child at the first SDS visit ranged from 4 years 3 months to 14 years 11 months, with a median of 5 years 1 month. First visits were primarily for an examination (98%). Children had a median of 13 visits until 12 years of age, with 10% having less than five visits and 4% having more than 25 visits. These data provide useful information regarding attendance at the SDS in Western Australia which could provide a basis for oral health promotion programs.