Public knowledge of prevention of dental disease.

The authors present data describing the level and extent of the general public''s knowledge of oral diseases and their prevention. They discuss data from the 1990 National Health Interview Survey''s Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Supplement in the context of national oral health objectives. They focus on demographic and socioeconomic differences seen in the public''s knowledge of the preventive purposes of fluorides and dental sealants for dental caries and of symptoms of gum disease. Reported low levels of knowledge regarding oral disease symptoms and their prevention show the continuing trend reported during the past decade. Racial and ethnic minorities and groups with low levels of formal education demonstrate the least knowledge of prevention of oral diseases. For example, 76 percent of those with more than 12 years of schooling know the preventive purpose of water fluoridation, compared with 61 percent of those with 12 years, and 36 percent of those with less than 12 years of school. Efforts to increase levels of knowledge about oral disease prevention are required to achieve national objectives for oral health.     

Hysterical psychosis: an empirical approach

Criteria for hysterical psychosis set forth by Hollender and Hirsch were systematically applied to a representative sample of 217 patients hospitalized for the first time in their lives for functional psychiatric illness. Surprisingly, no patients who met all of these criteria were found.     

Utilization of auxiliaries and attitudes of dentists toward the delegation of duties.

Employment of auxiliaries by dentists is high and duties performed by those auxiliaries vary. The auxiliaries' years of experience prior to their present job is low, but tenure in the job is not as low since over 30% have been employed five years or more. Regardless of the category of dentists being considered (type of practice, year of graduation, employment of auxiliaries), the great majority of dentists (over 95%) do not think cutting soft or hard tissue should be delegated. Beyond these two procedures, however, the tables show considerable variation in attitude toward delegation when year of graduation and employment of auxiliaries are considered. Other procedures that a substantial portion of the profession does not believe should be delegated are administering local anesthetic agents; placing and finishing resins, composites, and silicate restorations; placing amalgam restorations; and carving and finishing amalgam restorations. The impact of these attitudes on delivery of care should be directed particularly toward the attitudinal differences occasioned by graduation year and employment of auxiliaries, since the proportion of graduates shifts regularly and employment of auxiliaries is increasing.     

Knowledge of and Practices Related to Caries Prevention among Koreans

Objectives: This study assessed the knowledge and opinions of caries prevention and source of oral health information among Koreans. Methods : A questionnaire consisting of 36 items was used to interview 2,000 Koreans 10 through 69 years of age. Results for only selected questions are reported. A multistage, stratified, random sampling method was used. Results : Sixty-nine percent of the respondents had heard about fluoride. Only 16 percent knew that some community water supplies in Korea are fluoridated. Fifty-five percent of respondents who knew about community water fluoridation learned the information from television, whereas 28 percent read about it in a newspaper. Among those respondents who reported hearing about community water fluoridation, only 30 percent had precise information about its purpose. Fifty-five percent of the respondents reported that toothbrushing is the best way to maintain good oral health. Almost all respondents (97 percent) reported brushing their teeth one or more times a day. Conclusions : These data indicate that there is a relatively low level of accurate knowledge about dental caries prevention among Koreans 10 through 69 years of age. The majority of respondents report learning information about oral health from the mass media.     

A hostility measure for use in family contexts

A modification of the Gottschalk-Gleser standardized instructions for eliciting speech samples was developed and tested in ongoing family studies. This modification, the Wynne-Gift technique, allows the interviewer to focus on the speaker's relationships with various family members. The usefulness and validity of the approach was assessed in a study of differences in attitudes toward the husband of 10 separated or divorced women as compared to the attitudes of 11 married women. Significant differences were found in the expected direction between mean hostility outward scores as well as hostility toward the spouse or ex-spouse of these two groups of women. The range of applications of this modification of eliciting speech samples is discussed.     

The severity of psychiatric disorder: a replication

A prior report documented the importance of diagnosis and psychotic symptoms as components of a global rating of severity of psychiatric disorder. The availability of 2-year followup data on 174 (80%) of the original 217 patients permits examination of the stability of components of a global rating. Menninger Health-Sickness Rating Scale (MHRS) scores again correlated with diagnosis and with psychotic symptoms; unlike the initial report, followup MHRS ratings were closely associated with a depression-neurosis factor and social role performance. Age, race, and sex were independent of severity, while low socioeconomic status correlated with severity of illness.     

Analyses of neurobehavioral screening data: benchmark dose estimation

Zhu et al. (Zhu, Y., Wessel, M., Liu, T., Moser, V.C., 2005. Analyses of neurobehavioral screening data: dose-time-response modeling of continuous outcomes. Regul. Toxicol. Pharmacol. 41, 240-255) have recently applied dose-time-response models to longitudinal or time-course neurotoxicity data, and have illustrated the modeling process using continuous data from a functional observational battery (FOB). Following the work of these authors, the purpose of this paper is to show that the benchmark dose (BMD) method for single time point dose-response data can be generalized and applied to longitudinal data such as those generated in neurotoxicity studies. We propose a statistical procedure called bootstrap method for computing the lower confidence limits for the BMD. We demonstrate the method using three previously published FOB datasets of triethyltin (Moser, V.C., Becking, G.C., Cuomo, V., Frantik, E., Kulig, B., MacPhail, R.C., Tilson, H.A., Winneke, G., Brightwell, W.S., DeSalvia, M.A., Gill, M.W., Haggerty, G.C., Hornychova, M., Lammers, J., Larsson, J., McDaniel, K.L., Nelson, B.K., Ostergaard, G., 1997a. The IPCS study on neurobehavioral screening methods: results of chemical testing. Neurotoxicology 18, 969-1056.) and the models of Zhu et al. (Zhu, Y., Wessel, M., Liu, T., Moser, V.C., 2005. Analyses of neurobehavioral screening data: dose-time-response modeling of continuous outcomes. Regul. Toxicol. Pharmacol. 41, 240-255).