Child Dental Health

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Percentage of P1 children with no dental disease.

National Dental Inspection Programme (NDIP) 2012 publication

The National Dental Inspection Programme (NDIP) is carried out annually with the support and approval of the Scottish Dental Epidemiology Co-ordinating Committee. Its principal aims are to inform parents/carers of the oral health status of their children and, through appropriately anonymised, aggregated data, advise the Scottish Government, NHS Boards and other organisations concerned with children's health of oral disease prevalence at national and local levels. This ensures that reliable oral health information is available for planning initiatives directed towards health improvements.

Two school year groups are involved: i) at entry into Local Authority schools in primary one (P1) and ii) in primary seven (P7) before the move to secondary education. The Inspection Programme has two levels: a Basic Inspection (intended for all P1 and P7 children) and a Detailed Inspection (where a representative sample of either the P1 or the P7 age group is inspected in alternate years).

Detailed Inspection

* A comprehensive assessment of the mouth of each inspected child using a light, mirror and ball-ended probe.
* It involves recording the status of each surface of each tooth in accordance with international dental epidemiological conventions.
* It measures obvious decay into dentine (see below) when seen under school (rather than dental surgery) conditions.
* Those undertaking the inspections attend (and pass) a training and calibration course prior to the annual inspection process.

Obvious Decay

* This is when the disease process clinically appears to have penetrated dentine (i.e. the layer below the outer white enamel of the teeth) on a tooth surface.
* This is described internationally as decay at the d3 level and includes pulpal decay (i.e. decay into the deeper dental pulp).
* The definition of decay used here is in accordance with the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD) guidelines and international epidemiological conventions, thus allowing comparisons to be made with other countries in Europe and beyond.
* This is a different diagnostic level from that used by many dentists when examining patients in a dental surgery, i.e. for dental check-ups.
* Decay is also known as caries.