Worldental Daily Istanbul 2013

News Advance Issue T he Republic of Turkey still lags significantly behind in terms of oral health. In advance of the FDI 2013 Annual World Dental Con- gress in Istanbul, Worldental Daily had the opportunity to speak with Profs.SaadetGökalpandBaharGüçiz Doğan from Hacettepe University in Ankara, who co-authored the coun- try’s last national oral health survey, about the state of oral health of the Turkish people and what needs to be done to improve the situation in the longrun. Worldental Daily: According to the last national survey conducted between 2004 and 2005, the oral health status of most Turks seems to be in a devastating state. What were the most important findings from the report? Profs. Saadet Gökalp and Bahar Güçiz Doğan: The survey, which used World Health Organization (WHO) cri- teria, found that individual oral health care was inadequate and the need for treatment was high throughout all indexagegroups.Veryfewpeoplevis- itedadentistregularlyandonlysought treatmentwhentheyhadaproblem. According to Turkish Statistical Institute figures, children between 0 and 6 years of age seem to suffer significantly less from oral health problems than children between 7and14yearsofagedo.Whyisthere such a rapid progression of oral disease at an early age? The methodology of the Turkish StatisticalInstitutewasdifferentfrom ours. Its data was gathered in May and related to health problems ex- periencedinthelastsixmonthsbyin- terviewing the mothers or caretakers of the child. However, there was no oralexamination,sothedentalhealth statusofthesubjectherselforhimself was not assessed. In addition, comparing children between the ages of 0 to 6 years and 7to14yearsisnotinformativeenough. In fact, WHO recommends assessing andfollowingthedentalhealthstatus of children of 5, 12 and 15 years of age. For this reason, we investigated patients of these ages in our survey. And what did you find? The report showed a high preva- lence of dental caries (68.8 per cent) among 5-year-old children. The de- cayed,missingandfilledteeth(DMFT) indexatage12was1.9,whichislower thantheWHOtargetfor2000(DMFT=3), but the significant caries index was 4.33 and caries prevalence still high (61.1 per cent). The mean DMFT score of 5-, 12- and 15-year-old children was mainly due to the D component, while the F component was very low. The mean DMFT score in the age groups 35–44 years of age (11.2) and 65–74 years of age (25.8) was mainly due to the M component. The Turkish government intro- duced a national health insurance system in 2008 in order to provide children between the ages of 5 and 15 with better access to dental care. Has the oral health situation im- proved since then? Unfortunately,thereisstillnodata available related to this issue. How- ever, a national oral health survey is planned to be conducted in 2014 by the same research group who wrote the last report. Once the findings of thissurveyhavebeenreleased,Ithink comparisonswillbeabletobedrawn. Edentulismhasbeenshowntobe extremely high among the Turkish elderly.Whatarethereasonsforthis high tooth loss in this age group? 4 www.fdiworldental.org page 6 IProfs.SaadetGökalp(left)andBaharGüçizDoğan. (DTI/PhotocourtesyofHacettepeUniversity,Turkey) www.fdi2014.org.in www.fdiworldental.org A billion smiles welcome the world of dentistry FDI 2014, New Delhi, India Annual World Dental Congress 11 - 14 September 2014 Greater Noida A billion smiles w ome the welcA billion smiles w 4.org.in1.fdi20www orldental.org.fdiwwww ld of denorome the w 4.org.in orldental.org ytistrld of den AD AninterviewwithProfs.SaadetGökalpandBaharGüçizDoğan,Turkey “Beingoneofthefastest-growing economiesisnotenough”