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Objectives: Perceptions of dental patients in Tanzania regarding barriers to restorative care were examined. Methods: A total of 1138 dental patients aged 15 years and above, attending 12 selected government dental clinics in January 2005, completed a pre-tested questionnaire.anova and logistic regression were used to identify the effects of independent variables upon the barrier factors. Results: Ten barriers to restorative care in Tanzania were identified. The five main barriers included: No advice received from dentist (mean = 3.82); Lack of knowledge on restorative care (mean = 3.58); Lack of habits for going for dental check-ups (mean = 3.31); Bother that one may get in seeking restorative care (mean = 3.28) and Past experience with dental treatment (mean = 3.25). Less respondents in the middle economic zone perceived issues related to beliefs and misinformation, lack of knowledge on restorative care and past experience with dental treatment to be barriers than respondents in low and high economic zones ( P < 0.01). However, more of them perceived issues related to high fee for restoration, bother that one may get in seeking restorative care and few clinics rendering restorative care ( P < 0.0001) to be barriers than respondents in the high economic zone did. Women, more than men, perceived few clinics rendering restorative care and no advice received from dentist as barriers to restorative care ( P < 0.01). Respondents who had received a restoration and/or had relatives who had received a restoration perceived bother that one may get in seeking restorative care and no advice received from dentist more as barriers to restorative care than did those who lacked that experience and whose relatives had not received a restoration ( P < 0.05). Conclusions: No advice received from dentist and lack of knowledge on restorative care, were the two major barriers to restorative care, as perceived by dental patients in Tanzania. Implementation of the Atraumatic Restorative Treatment approach may overcome many of the barriers identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In Tanzania, the effect of sugar cane chewing on the development of caries was investigated. Two groups were selected; those who had easy access to sugar cane (sugar cane cutters) and those who did not (sisal plant workers). These groups had a similar socio-economic background, had similar levels of fluoride in drinking water, consumed similar amounts of refined sugar per day, but had a significant difference in number of pieces of sugar cane chewed per day. The caries prevalence in both groups was low compared with that in adult populations in Western countries. Sugar cane cutters had significantly higher mean DMT/S scores than sisal plant workers. Analysis of Variance revealed a weakly significant effect of sugar cane chewing on the caries scores (p = 0. 02 for DMT andp = 0. 05 for DMS). Results of the study suggest that sugar cane chewing in large quantities over a long period has a caries-promoting effect in populations with a low caries prevalence, and further, that sugar sales figures reported for such populations are of questionable reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on various longitudinal studies conducted on dental caries in Tanzania. The number of cross-sectional studies on dental caries in population groups in Tanzania have increased substantially in the last decade though results of longitudinal caries studies, however, have not been reported so far. The total number of children examined longitudinally were 506 in 1984-1986, 579 in 1986-1988 and 400 in 1984-1988. Another remarkable finding was the presence of a substantial number of reversed dentinal lesions as compared to the number of newly developed dentinal lesions.