Recruiting Rural Dentally--Avoidant Adolescents Into an Intervention Study (Report‪)‬

Introduction Lack of dental treatment leads to serious dental problems and a lowered quality of life [Berggren and Meynert, 1984]. Rural children in North America, as elsewhere, have higher rates of dental disease than the rest of the population [Caplan and Weintraub, 1993], making it particularly important to ensure that they attend the dentist regularly. Among rural children, adolescents are an important target group as they are no longer under direct parental supervision and may decide on their own to stop making dental appointments [Gatchel 1989; Todd and Lader, 1991; Hawley and Holloway, 1992; Adekoya-Sofowora et al., 1996]. Further, as adolescents may soon be parents themselves, their dental behaviours are likely to influence the dental health of the next generation.