An Investigation into Actual Condition of Recall in the Pedodontic Clinic of Niigata University Dental Hospital

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the actual condition of the recall system in the pedodontic clinic of the Niigata University Dental Hospital, and to enable the recall system to be used efficiently. We investigated 3559 child patients (1907 boys and 1652 girls) who visited our clinic from September 1979to February 1984 for a period of 54 months and who had finished caries treatments.
Firstly, the following findings were obtained from each chart of patients;
1. The percentage of the first recall was 82%.
2. As the number of visits for caries treatments increased, the number of recall visits also increased.
3. As the patients adjusted to the dental procedures, the rate of the recall visits became lower.
4. Compared with the positive recall method, the rate of patients not visiting our clinic with the negative recall method decreased by three times.
5. Inside the prefecture of Niigata, the rate of recall had almost no connection with the distance between patients' homes and our clinic.
6. The rate of recall of patients using space retainers was high, compared with the rate of those using no space retainer.
7. The rate of recall of patients with some sort of systemic disease was lower.
Secondly, the following findings were obtained from the investigation of questionnaires. The questionnaires were sent to parents of 1221 patients who had not made the any recall visits at all.
1. More than 75% of parents answered that they did not consider further visits to our clinic as being necessary. Of those, the answer in which the children did not have any more dental caries occupied the highest rate.
2. In the group of patients under six years old, the rate of patients having visited the other clinics was higher than the rate of the group of patients over six years old.