Preventive dentistry for children: a review from 1968-1988--Journal of Dentistry for Children.

This report summarizes the progress made by pediatric dentistry over the last twenty-year period, especially in terms of prevention, with an emphasis on the role that the Journal has had in informing and guiding the readership along the lines of professional practice. Patients are younger now; parents more informed by the profession and the mass media; practitioners are more prevention-oriented toward disease, as opposed to being trained to control the disease process. A preventive philosophy has been presented to the readership in Journal volumes 35-55, in which 1,099 scientific articles were published. Prevention (16 percent), oral pathology (24.4 percent), orthodontic/growth and development (14 percent), behavior management (12 percent), and rehabilitative dentistry (9.9 percent) were the largest groups of articles published in the Journal in the last two decades.