Six month observational study of the measures of salivary, plaque and lifestyle factors and their associations in a defence population
Dental caries and to a lesser extent dental erosion are major dental health risks for new military personnel. Salivary profiling and plaque testing are two contemporary techniques for risk assessment for dental caries and dental erosion. This project was based upon tracking longitudinally certain key salivary and plaque parameters in Navy trainees at HMAS Cerberus within the Heath Centre Cerberus (HCC). In total 106 adolescent subjects of varying
caries risk levels were recruited for the study. It has been established that lifestyle changes occur in much
of the target population during initial training, which reduce hydration and may have the consequential deleterious effect on oral health. Two commercially available test kits were used to collect saliva and plaque samples. In addition a lifestyle questionnaire relating to diet, smoking, exercise and oral hygiene was completed to gather baseline data on each subject. Plaque and Saliva sampling was repeated at the 6 month evaluation as was the completion of the lifestyle questionnaire and comparisons made to the baseline data obtained initially. This paper will present the analysis of the trends in dental caries risk and associated lifestyle data. By completing similar studies with differing interventions it may be possible to determine the most effective oral hygiene education and intervention regime to limit the numbers of members in the high risk zone.
