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Objective: To study the effect of governmental strategies, to constitute and publish recommendations on antibiotic usage in dentistry, on the antibiotic consumption. Material and methods: Descriptive statistics regarding antibiotic prescription between 2009 and 2017 was retrieved from two national registers, the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register and the Dental Health register, both administered by the National Board of Health and Welfare. Age standardization was applied to alleviate the comparison between gender, different regions and years. Results: The number of dispatched prescriptions of antibiotics from dentists was reduced with 31% during the study period. 10% of the visits to a dentist generated an antibiotic prescription corresponding to 7% of the total number of antibiotic prescriptions. A decline in prescription was observed after publication of national recommendations for antibiotics prophylaxis in 2012 and antibiotic treatment in 2014. Unexplained geographical and gender differences in the rates of prescription were seen. Conclusions: Data indicates a correlation between introduction of governmental strategies to reduce antibiotic usage and declining antibiotic prescription. Although a marked reduction in prescription was observed, the results indicate that there is further potential for improvement of antibiotic stewardship in odontology.

We used Swedish national registers to analyse dental health care among young adults with childhood experience of out‐of‐home care (OHC), in Cox regression analyses. All 1.7 million Swedish residents born in 1980–1994 were included, of whom 4% had been in OHC. The population was followed up in the Dental Health Register from age 20 to 29, during the period 2009–2014. We found that persons with short or long OHC experience made emergency dental care visits more often than their majority‐population peers: 17–23% versus 9–10%, (adjusted Hazard ratios [HR:s] 1.60–2.02); they more often had tooth extractions, 9–12% versus 3% (HR:s 2.33–3.03); but less regularly visited a dentist for planned check‐ups, 61–77% versus 80–87% (HR:s 0.76–0.78). Since dental health in young adulthood reflects dental health and dental care in childhood, the findings of this study call for improved preventive dental health care for children in OHC.