Waste of dental pain.

The effects of dental disease on the population are difficult to describe to the lay public in terms which that public will appreciate. An attempt has been made to quantify the impairment of the quality of life which results from uncontrolled dental disease. Studies indicated that each person could have three to four days of dental pain a year which could be equivalent to 200 million days of toothache per year in the United Kingdom. Only 15 per cent of those who had toothache did seek dental advice for it. This represented a waste and an impairment in the quality of life. It is proposed that estimates of days of dental pain could prove an index of the quality of life of a population.