Abstract
The purpose of this investigation was to gain insight into the actual condition of patients who visited the Pediatric Dental Clinic of Kyushu University Dental Hospital during the period from April 1979 to March 1993. The subjects were 6229 children (3107 boys and 3122 girls).
The findings were as follows:
(1) As for the age of the patients at the first visit,2 year-old and 3 year-old patients represented a large percentage (26.2%).
(2) As for the chief complaint, the complaint of dental caries was the most frequent, followed by malocclusion, trauma, oral check up and soft tissue disease. However, the rate of dental caries decreased every year while that of the other complaints increased.
(3) As for the number of patients who were referred to our clinic, patients from private general dental clinics were the most numerous, followed by those from Kyushu University Medical Hospital, friends, The Oral Surgery Clinic of this hospital as well as the staff of this hospital and general hospitals. The number of these patients increased every year and has occupied over 55% of all patients sinse 1991.
(4) The rate of patients afflicted with other than dental diseases or handicapped patients was 20.4%. Most of them were from Kyushu University Medical Hospital. The number of the patients from general hospitals has increased rapidly every year.
(5) 61.18% of all patients had experienced dental treatment before they visited our clinic. Most of the patients with malocclusion as the chief complaint had experienced dental treatment before, while most of the patients who came for oral chek up or whose chief complaint was soft tissue diseases had no such experience.
