Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, School of Dentistry, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

2 Dentist

Abstract

Statement of Problem: Dental caries and abscess, pain, trauma, oral habits, malocclusions and eruption anomalies are the main reasons for people dental visits. Other reasons are calculus dental, discoloration, anomalies in number and shape, cleft lip and palate, gingival problems, primary and secondary herpes and dental hypoplasia.Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the reasons for visiting a dentist during the past 10 years and also to evaluate the tendency of parents for treatment of children's dental problems.Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, 450 files from a private pedodontic dental clinic were randomly chosen. Age and the reason for visiting the dentist, and also the tendency of parents for continuing dental treatments were surveyed to evaluate the parental interest for children's dental care. The files were divided into 3 age-groups of 0-2, 2-6 and 6-12 years.Results: The mean age of the patients was 6.4 years. The reasons for visiting the dentist were respectively dental caries (47%), pain (28.86%), clinical examination (15%), dental abscess (9.33%), tooth eruption (7.77%), trauma (6.66%), gingival problems (2%) and oral habits (1.33%). Also 18.88% of children referred for dental treatment.Conclusion: The most important cause of visiting the dentist was caries (47%) that shows their parents were not familiar with preventive measures. Also only 18.8% of parents brought their children for dental treatment showing most of the parents did not believe in the importance of primary dentition. Key words: Reasons for Dental Visiting, Dental Caries, Prevention