Journal vol.2 no.1 abstract5 of The Japan Health Care Dental Association

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The Journal of The Japan Health Care Dental Association

The Journal of The Japan Health Care Dental Association Vol.2 No.1, 2000
abstract

The Report of the Attitude Survey Conducted on Professionals and Members about Fluorides

Subcommittee for Fluoride Survey (Chairman ; Kenji Oka)

In Japan discussing about usefulness and spreading applications of fluorides aimed for caries prevention is still dealt as if it were a kind of taboo. This has been resulted from the disputes over fluorides that have been taken place as if a confrontation of ideology. As a matter of fact, there is a confrontation between a few activists who advocate water fluoridation and the opponent groups that strongly oppose fluoridation. This dispute has become an obstacle to the application of fluorides itself. It can be said that one of the causes of such an unproductive argument has been brought from the absence of a consensus among dental and medical professionals for this issue. In the light of this situation, we conducted "a survey of professionals' awareness for the application of fluorides" on the specialists of professors, assistant professors and lecturers in the university. These professionals belong to the clinical chairs, including preventive dentistry and oral hygiene, of all Japanese dental colleges and dental faculties (total 29 schools) and the chairs of pathology, biochemistry and pharmacology. The number of the effective addresses was 827 persons and the effective replies 256 persons (31.0%). The same survey has been carried out to our members as well. We will report the results of the survey and review it in this paper.

This survey has indicated that most dentists in Japan, who have high awareness to the issue, consider "preventing caries from occurring is one of the most significant concerns for those who related to dental practices." The survey has also shown that these dentists recognize that the fact that the application of fluorides brings great effects on caries prevention and checking disease progression has been proved by the extensive epidemiological studies. As for the application measures of fluorides, dentifrice, professional care and fluoride mouth-rinsing have been supported, in particular, dentifrice obtained supports about 80% among replies. On the other hand, water fluoridation remained 27% of support.

J Health Care Dent 2000; 2: 43-49.

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