Direct restorations and enhanced caries prevention among 20- to 60-year-olds attending Helsinki City Public Dental Service – a register-based observation

Abstract

Objective

Our retrospective register-based observational study evaluated age‐specific aspects and changes in volume and content of direct restorative procedures, pulp cappings and enhanced caries prevention measures given to adults.

Methods

Data included all treatments provided for 20- to 60-year-olds visiting the Helsinki City Public Dental Service (PDS) in 2012 and 2017. For both years, the data were aggregated into 5-year age groups. Data included means of DMFT indices, number and size of direct restorations, number of specific codes for pulp cappings and enhanced prevention.

Results

Around half of all patients received restorations, 39,820 (50.9%) in 2012 and 43,392 (45.9%) in 2017. The greatest increase in DMFT means by age cohort was found for the 2012 age cohort of 25- to 29-year-olds and the smallest for the 2012 age cohort of 45- to 49-year-olds. In each same-age group and each age cohort, the enhanced prevention in 2017 was less frequent than in 2012. The proportion of two-surface restorations accounted for 44.7% of procedures in 2012 and 45.9% in 2017, followed by an increasing proportion of one-surface restorations, from 28.3% in 2012 to 32.9% in 2017. Associations between restoration size and age group were highly significant (p < .001).

Conclusions

The volume of direct restorative procedures and enhanced prevention measures were strongly age-dependent. Restorative treatment procedures were more frequent in older age groups than in younger age groups, and vice versa for enhanced prevention and pulp cappings. The magnitude of restorative treatment decreased slowly from 2012 to 2017, and overall enhanced preventive treatment was limited.

Keywords:

• Adult
• public dental health
• register-based data
• restorative treatment
• preventive treatment

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Tuomo Maisala from the City of Helsinki Department of Social Services and Healthcare, Helsinki, Finland, for gathering the data for our study.

Ethical approval

Study approval statement: The City of Helsinki Department of Social Services and Healthcare approved the study protocol. No ethics approval was needed because the data are a register-based entity with no connection to an individual patient’s identity.

Author contributions

UP contributed to conception, design, interpretation and drafted the manuscript. MMV contributed to conception, design, data acquisition and analysis, and critically revised the manuscript. SV contributed to conception, design and critically revised the manuscript. All the authors gave final approval and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from The City of Helsinki Department of Social Services and Healthcare. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for this study. Such dataset may be requested from The City of Helsinki Department of Social Services and Healthcare.

Additional information

Funding

Authors have no funding sources to declare.