The oral health status in Mahonisi: a community with very low levels of dental caries.

The oral health status and treatment needs of the community at Mahonisi were determined in order to plan a health care programme. The caries experience, occlusal status, fluorosis prevalence and prosthetic status and needs were determined according to the WHO pathfinder methodology (1987). The dmft for the 4- 5- and 6-year-old children was 0.33 and 0.67 respectively. The DMFT ranged from 0 in the 12- and 15-year-old children to 4.2 in the 65-years-and-older age group. Among the 12-, 15- and 18-year-old pupils 73% had good occlusions, 18% had slight and 9% more serious anomalies. Of the 152 subjects examined for fluorosis only 2 exhibited very mild dental fluorosis. No soft-tissue lesions were seen in the adult sample, but 10 cases were seen in the schoolchildren. No edentulous person was seen, but 4 people needed extraction of all their remaining teeth. A need for 7 partial dentures was recorded. The simplified oral hygiene index (OHI-S) ranged from 1.45 in the 4- 5-year-old children to 4.47 in the oldest group. The zero DMFT scores for the 12- and 15-year-old children are exceptional and need to be further investigated. It is recommended that the teachers in the pre-school and some of the primary school be trained to provide oral hygiene instruction to the children.