[Investigation into the actual condition of outpatients. II. Correlation between the daily habits of eating and toothbrushing and the prevalence of dental caries incidence].

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the correlation between the daily habits of eating and tooth-brushing and the prevalence of dental caries in the outpatients who visited the Pedodontics Clinic of the Tohoku University Dental Hospital during the period from April 1981 to March 1986. The subjects were 877 individuals with questionnaires which the mothers had filled out. The following findings were obtained. 1) The dft index for children aged 1 year to 6 years in the present investigation was lower than that of the same age group investigated 10 years ago. 2) The dft indicies according to each feeding group were 8.86 in the bottle feeding group, 7.51 in the breast feeding group and 6.77 in the mixed feeding group. 3) The group in which the weaning period was late showed a significantly high dft index. 4) The dft index of the group taking beverages containing sugar before going to bed was significantly higher than that of the group without doing this. 5) The group of patients aged 2 years to 5 years who had between-meal snacks more frequently showed a high dft index. 6) The irregularity of the between-meal eating times caused a high tendency toward caries occurrence. 7) The group having between-meal snacks while playing showed a significantly higher dft index than that of the group having it at a table and not playing. 8) No relation was observed between the frequency of tooth brushing and the dft index.