[Discriminant analysis concerning the background factors of dental caries prevalence in young child-patients visiting the pedodontic clinic of Ohu University Dental Hospital].

In order to get the appropriate clinical information for dental caries prevention, 38 boys and 30 girls who visited the pedodontic clinic of Ohu University Dental Hospital were surveyed for 3 years, they ranged from 2 to 5 years of age. They had all deciduous teeth and were classified into 4 groups, desirable, light, moderate and severe, on the basis of the longitudinal changes of the dental caries attack patterns, after 1 year and 3 years, which is used at the dental health examination of 3-year old children in Japan. The relationships between the groups and the investigations from documents of their past history, health and usual condition of living at their first visit to the hospital were analysed by means of discriminant analysis of the first class of Hayashi's quantifying theory. The results were as follows: 1. O caries attack patterns at 2 years of age transmitted to all caries attack patterns except B patterns at 3 years, and O caries attack patterns at 3 and 4 years never transmitted to C patterns at 5 years. 2. The desirable group having no change in the caries attack patterns was 64.7%, at 2 to 3 years, but was 25.1% and decreased markedly at 2 to 5 years. The severe group transmitting to C caries attack patterns was 17.7% at 2 to 3 years, but was 42.6% and increased remarkably at 2 to 5 years.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)