A novel school dental screening programme.

The study validated a novel school dental screening test based on the professional and public belief that regular, or asymptomatic dental attendance is beneficial to oral health. A randomly selected group of 175, 14-15-year-old boys and girls were questioned about their dental attendance which was verified either by the dentists whom they claimed to visit or by further questioning those whose behaviour was not clear. This method of separating symptomatic from asymptomatic attenders had a sensitivity of 1.00 and a specificity of 0.72. The method was inexpensive and acceptable to both the school staff and the pupils. The preventive dental knowledge of both groups was high. Although the dental attitudes of the asymptomatic attenders were significantly better than those who attended symptomatically it was not possible to demonstrate with confidence that they had better dental health.