The life-course approach and dental health of pre-adolescents and negative maternal influence (less time spent conditions.20 Since there is no national dental data with mother) contribute to lower levels of self- bank in Turkey, the use of standardized diagnostic esteem among Turkish pre-adolescents. criteria facilitates other comparisons, as found Eventhoughthesemeasurementsofbodyheight earlier between two countries with differing and weight by self-reports may be considered oral health care systems, respectively similar to as possibly biased, parent-reported body those in Turkey and Finland.38 The family-related measurements for adolescents have been shown characteristics used in the present study are also to be reliable and valid.37 As the aim concerned used in cross-sectional studies utilizing the life- the association between health capital (body course approach,25 generating hypotheses on height-weight) and DMFT, separately for Turkish different pathways to explain the associations.39 and Finnish pre-adolescents, the genetic or other Life-course factors can be measured by reliable factors that may lead to differences on health self-reports among pre-adolescents, because capital measures between these countries was out children are already sufficiently aware of these of concern. In both countries, oral health data were factors in the beginning of pre-adolescence.40 collected by use of standardized recording criteria The limitation of this study is its cross sectional that are also practical and reliable under field nature. There seems to be need for the follow-up Table 2. Association of DMFT with selected parameters by means of logistic regression analysis,ª among Turkish (n=459) and Finnish (n=155) pre-adolescents. Turkish pre-adolescents Finnish pre-adolescents 0.83-2.50 0.197 0.60-3.11 0.460 Health capitalb Height (cm) Weight (kg) Behavioural capitalc Tooth-brushing self-efficacy Low High Low High Self-esteem Family-related characteristicsc Number of children in family Family type Single Two-parent Time spend with mother on a school day Gender Girl Boy Age Adjusted OR 1.02 1.03 1.44 1 1 2.37 0.59 1 1.45 1.18 1 0.48 0.75 95% CI 1.01-1.13 0.99-1.08 1.36-4.10 0.42-0.85 0.45-4.63 0.59-1.05 0.27-0.86 0.49-1.12 P 0.003 0.144 0.002 0.001 0.532 0.100 0.013 0.159 Adjusted OR 1.10 0.98 1.28 1 1 1.56 0.82 1 3.01 0.60 1 1.69 0.73 95% CI 1.02-1.18 0.85-0.96 P 0.009 0.002 0.69-3.52 0.280 0.51-1.31 0.400 1.16-7.84 1.02-1.18 0.75-3.82 0.44-1.20 0.024 0.027 0.200 0.220 a:Outcome: dentally healthy:DMFT=0 vs. dentally diseased:DMFT>0 Statistical evaluation: b: by student t-test, c: by chi-square test, differences by nationality; Adjusted OR: by age and gender 158 European Journal of Dentistry