Incidence of dental traumatic injuries in children 0-4 years of age: a prospective study based on parental reporting.

AIM: To collect prospective information reported by parents regarding dental traumas occurring in children 6 months to 4 years of age, furthermore, to collect data on complications from the dental records.

METHODS: The staff from the child health services distributed a questionnaire at the regular health check-up reviews for a number of age groups, i.e., 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, and 42 months of age. The parents were to observe and register factors around dental trauma for the following 6-month period. The questionnaires (138) were returned, irrespective of any trauma having occurred or not. If a child was seeing a dentist (emergency visit), the diagnosis of trauma and later complications were collected from the dental records.

RESULTS: There were 35 of 138 children experienced trauma (6-47 months of age). The half-year incidence of trauma in children 6 months to 4.0 years of age was between 12 and 48%. A total of 41 traumatic dental injuries (TDIs) were reported. Of these 24 occurred indoors. The most common reason for trauma was falling accidents. In 24 out of the 41 reported TDIs the children were not seen by a dentist in connection with the trauma. The reason was that the parents thought the trauma did not matter.

CONCLUSIONS: The high incidence of TDIs reported in toddlers in this study indicates that there is an under-reporting of TDIs in previously reported studies. The research design used in the present study has an advantage and should be tested in further studies.