This website presents guidance from the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme (SDCEP) which is relevant to the oral health care of children and young people. The guidance was developed using SDCEP's established methodology and is endorsed nationally and internationally as a source of reliable, high quality, professional advice that promotes the provision of safe and effective oral health care for patients. 

Prevention and Management of Dental Caries in Children aims to assist and support primary care practitioners and their teams in improving and maintaining the oral health of their young patients from birth up to the age of 18 years. The guidance provides clear and practical recommendations and advice on the provision of dental care to prevent and, if necessary, manage dental decay in children. 

Key messages

• Dental caries is the world's most common disease and is largely preventable.
• Effective, evidence-based strategies are available for caries prevention and management. 
• All members of the dental team play a vital role in both preventing and managing caries in children. 
• Parents or carers also have a crucial role and should be encouraged to take responsibility for the child's oral health, to implement preventive advice at home and to bring the child for dental care.
• The child or young person and parent/carer should be involved in decisions regarding the child's oral health care.
• The focus should be to provide preventive advice and interventions.
• Infection or caries in the primary and permanent dentition should not be left unmanaged.
• The least invasive, feasible management strategy should be used to manage caries in the primary and permanent dentition.
• Early identification of those children where there is concern about a parent/carer’s ability to comply with dental health preventive advice, support or treatment uptake, can enable collaboration with other professionals. 

Following the prevention and management strategies presented in this guidance will enable the dental team to provide care that will significantly benefit both children’s oral health and experience of dental care. 

For a list of the main changes in this third edition of this guidance, see Introduction.

The recommendations and clinical advice in this guidance supports dental professionals to provide care efficiently, reduce waste of resources and effort, and thereby contribute to lessening their carbon footprint.

'Supporting safe, effective, sustainable, person-centred prevention and care'