ABSTRACT
In order to examine the attitudes of third-year dental students towards oriental medicine before and after lecture courses, and compare their attitudes with those of medical students, self-administered questionnaires were given to Aichi-Gakuin University School of Dentistry students (DS), and Kinki University School of Medicine students (MS). Pre-course,105 DS and 68 MS provided valid answers, while 104 DS provided valid answers post-course. Pre-course, 80.9% of DS thought oriental medicine would be important in the future, and 72.4% wanted to learn it. Also pre-course, 7.6% of DS had knowledge of oriental medicine, 55.2% were interested in oriental medicine, and 54.3% wanted to introduce oriental medicine into their clinical practice in the future. These last percentages increased after the lecture courses to 50.0%, 76.9% and 77.9%, respectively. With pre-course MS, on the other hand : 64.7% were interested in oriental medicine ; 58.8% thought it would be important in the future ; 51.5% wanted to introduce it in their clinical practice ; and 70.6% wanted to learn it.These results show that both dental and medical students had similar attitudes toward oriental medicine, and that dental students need an oriental medicine education equivalent to that of medical students.
ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVES</b>This study investigated the incidence of caries in infants and explored the risk factors related to noteworthy variations between urban and rural areas.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Subjects were 232 infants (111 males and 121 females) aged 1.6 and 3 years born in "N" town between the fiscal years of 1997 and 2001. Infants aged 1.6 and 3 years had 99.6 and 100% participation in health checkups, respectively. Of the total, 148 and 84 infants were living in the urban and rural areas, respectively, of "N" town.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Caries incidence and the average number of carious teeth (decayed/missing/filled teeth, dmft) for infants aged 1.6 years were significantly higher in the rural area than in the urban area, indicating that environmental factors that predispose infants to develop dental caries exist in the rural area. In addition, logistic regression analysis for infants in each of the two areas revealed that risk factors of the child-care environment, for example living with grandparents and brushing by parents, stood in marked contrast with each other. Moreover, the odds ratio of the risk factor dozing off while drinking showed a marked difference between the areas, although this risk factor was common in both areas.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The results of this study indicated that several factors of the child-care environment, for example the daytime caring person, are related with caries development. Scientific elucidation of the risk factors that give rise to high prevalence of caries in specific regions and access to the whole picture of the disease mechanism may have great potential to lead to the development of effective countermeasures and to contribute to the reduction of dental caries in preschool children.</p>