Method: Children, who were recruited during their 8-month distraction-hearing test, were randomly allocated to intervention and control groups. Subsequently, parents in the intervention group were visited at home and given preventive advice. A second home visit took place when the child was about 20 months old. The children received a toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste at both visits.
Results: 251 children were recruited to the control group and 250 to the intervention group. At age 3, they were examined; the mean dmfs scores were 2.19 (95% Confidence Interval: 1.41-2.97) in the control group (n=171) and 2.03 (CI: 1.39-2.67) in the intervention group (n=181). During a BASCD census survey of 5-year-old children in the Primary Care Trust (PCT) area in 2003/04, 276 of the children in the study were examined at school. At this age the mean dmfs scores were 4.84 (CI: 3.39-6.29) in the control group (n=129) and 3.99 (CI: 2.54-5.04) in the intervention group (n=147). However, the mean dmfs for the remaining 2253 children who were examined was 5.94 (CI: 5.55-6.33).
Conclusion: The mean dmfs score of children in the intervention group was significantly better than the rest of the 5-year-olds in the PCT area. However, no statistically significant difference was found between the control and intervention groups of children although, as the children had grown older, the gap between them had widened. Therefore, asking control parents to take part in the study and examining their children at 3 years may have made it more difficult to detect any differences achieved by the programme.
Acknowledgements: The NHS Executive National Primary Care R&D Programme funded the original 3-year study.