ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: This study explored how elderly Chinese immigrants value and relate to how acculturation influences oral health and subsequent service use. METHODS: Elders who had immigrated to Melbourne and Vancouver within the previous 15 years were recruited from local community centres and assigned to focus groups of 5-7 participants in Vancouver (4 groups) or Melbourne (5 groups). RESULTS: Following an iterative process of thematic analysis, the discussions revealed that immigrants care about the comfort and appearance of their teeth, and they value Western dentistry as a supplement to traditional remedies, but they have difficulty getting culturally sensitive information about oral health care. Accessing dentistry, they explained, is distressing because of language problems and financial costs that impose on their children. Consequently, many immigrants obtain dental treatment in China when they return for occasional visits. They felt that separation of dentistry from national health care programmes in Canada and Australia disregards natural links between oral health and general health. CONCLUSIONS: The similarity of concerns in both cities suggests that dissemination of information and availability of services are the important themes influencing oral health, and that, beliefs developed over a lifetime play an important role in interpreting oral health in the host country.
Subject(s)
Attitude to Health/ethnology , Dental Care for Aged , Emigrants and Immigrants , Acculturation , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , British Columbia , China/ethnology , Dental Care for Aged/economics , Eating/physiology , Educational Status , Emigrants and Immigrants/education , Emigrants and Immigrants/psychology , Esthetics, Dental , Family Relations/ethnology , Female , Focus Groups , Health Behavior , Health Care Costs , Health Education, Dental , Health Services Accessibility , Health Status , Humans , Language , Male , Medicine, Chinese Traditional , Mouth Diseases/prevention & control , Oral Health/ethnology , Social Values , VictoriaABSTRACT
0.05) but the recovery rate of MFP2- by IC and by FSE was statistically different (1.00 v.s. 1.08; P
ABSTRACT
Objective: To compare the quantities of water-soluble, water-insoluble glucans synthesized by S. mutans in 3-4 years old children with high dmft and no caries. Methods: The quantities of water-soluble and water-insoluble glucans synthesized by S. mutans from dental plaques of children with high dmft (dmft≥5) and caries-free (dmft=0) were measured using the anthrone method. Results: S. mutans isolated from the children with high dmft had stronger ability in producing both water-soluble and water-insoluble glucans than those isolated from the caries-free children (0.0332 mg/ml v.s. 0.0192 mg/ml and 0.0357 mg/ml v.s. 0.0215 mg/ml respectively). Children with high dmft harbored more isolates with higher water-soluble or water-insoluble glucans producing ability than caries-free children. Water-insoluble glucans produced by all the clinical isolates is higher than water-soluble glucans (0.0301 mg/ml v.s. 0.0267 mg/ml) and the difference was statistically significant. Conclusion: There may be a correlation between the extracellular glucans producing ability of S. mutans and the caries susceptibility in deciduous teeth.
ABSTRACT
Objective:To study the psychosocial effect of fluorosis on students with dental fluorosis.Methods:115 students with different types of fluorosis were sampled randomly from fluorosis epidemic area of Xingtai city in Hebei province, including 60 of 12-year-old and 55 of 15-year-old students. Dental fluorosis was classified by Dean's Index (DI). Parents and teachers of the selected students were involved in a psychosocial questionnaire investigation which included five five-point questions, respectively.Results:Prevalence of fluorosis was 89.6% in the young students in the area. Evaluation scores by parents, which included “health of teeth”, “satisfaction of teeth” and “perceived well-being”, decreased with the decline of DI. Statistical difference was found in the answer to the five questions by parents when comparing the evaluation scores of control(without dental fluorosis) group,moderate dental fluorosis group and severe dental fluorosis group(P0.05). Difference of the evaluation scores of parents and teachers on boys and girls was not significant.Conclusion:Fluorosis has psychosocial impact on students, especially evaluated by parents.
