A controlled, longitudinal study of home visits compared to telephone contacts to prevent early childhood caries.

Background: Home visits (HV) provide excellent opportunities for health promotion.

Aim: This longitudinal study compared the effects of HV and telephone contacts (TC) in preventing early childhood caries (ECC) and colonisation of mutans streptococci (MS) and lactobacilli (LB) from 0 to 24 months.

Design: A total of 325 children were recruited from community health centres at mean age of 42 days, and randomly assigned to receive either HV or TC. A total of 188 children completed three, 6 monthly HV, and another 58 had three, 6 monthly TC. An additional 40 age-matched children from childcare facilities served as reference controls (RC). At 24 months, all groups were examined at a community dental clinic.

Results: At 24 months, three HV children of 188 (1.5%) had caries, compared to four TC of 58 (6.8%) and nine RC of 40 (22.5%) (P < 0.001 for HV versus RC; P = 0.05 for HV versus TC and P = 0.03 for TC versus RC). There were also more children with MS in the TC (47%) and RC (35%) compared to HV (28%) group (P = 0.01 and P = 0.02).

Conclusions: Home visits and telephone contacts conducted 6 monthly from birth are effective in reducing ECC prevalence by 24 months.