Dental caries experience of schoolchildren of two different oral health care delivery systems

Objectives: To report on the dental caries experience in schoolchildren from a region with a needs-based dental service compared with a region with a demand-led dental service. Design: Cross-sectional study with clustered sampling. Setting: Urban primary schools in Dublin (Ireland) and Freiburg (Germany). Participants: 12-year-old schoolchildren. Method: A trained and calibrated dentist examined a representative, random sample of schoolchildren under the same standardised conditions. Social class was recorded using the 'Goldthorpe-Social-Class-Schema'. Dental caries was recorded using WHO criteria. Results: A total of 567 schoolchildren were examined, 332 in Ireland and 249 in Germany. For Ireland the mean DMFT in SC-1 (highest social class) was 0.28, in SC-2 (middle social class) it was 1.1 and in SC-3 (lowest social class) it was 0.94. For Germany the mean DMFT in SC-1 was 0.31, in SC-2 it was 0.61 and in SC-3 it was 1.33. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the existence of social gradients in dental caries levels in both samples but the magnitude of the difference varied across the two populations and appeared to be smaller in the needs-based dental service.