Home visits or telephone contacts may help prevent early childhood caries.

DESIGN

Randomisation to intervention groups using Zelen's design with a non-participant community control group recruited at 24 months.

INTERVENTION

Patients were allocated to either the home visit (HV) group (n=236) or telephone contact (TC) group (n=89). HVs and TCs were conducted at 6,12 and 18 months. Bacterial tests were given to both groups at baseline and 24 months. The HV group had an additional bacterial test at six months. A community control (reference group) was recruited from the same district at 24 months. All three groups (HV, TC and reference) were examined for caries at 24 months.

OUTCOME MEASURE

The primary outcome measure was dental caries (dmft), secondary measures were Streptococcus mutans (MS) and lactobacilli (LB) levels.

RESULTS

There was no statistically significant difference in caries between HVs and TCs . However there were statistically significant differences respectively in caries levels between HV/TC and the reference group. There was a statistically significant difference in MS levels between the HV group and both the TC and reference groups, with fewer children with high MS levels in the HV group(28%) compared with either the TC group(47%) or reference group (35%).

CONCLUSIONS

Both HVs and TCs conducted six-monthly from birth are effective in reducing early childhood caries prevalence compared to RC by 24 months. HVs are also associated with fewer children with MS compared with TC and reference group at 24 months.