Development of the guideline

The guideline development group met on eight occasions between April 1997 and January 1999, with further meetings of sub-groups taking place in addition to correspondence between group members. Early in the guideline development patient representatives were invited to join the development group, these representatives opted instead to participate once draft guidelines were available. Initial meetings considered a wide range of issues related to caries prevention in adolescents.

The literature review conducted for this guideline covered the Cochrane Library, Issue 2 1997, plus searches of Medline and Healthstar from 1985 to 1997. The evidence base was updated during the course of development of the guideline. Reference lists, existing systematic reviews, and guideline developer's own resources were used to trace older material. In view of the limited number of trials identified, the Medline and Healthstar searches were extended to cover all types of literature. Root caries was specifically excluded from the literature searches.

Successive drafts were developed by synthesis of the literature, correspondence and full discussion at a National Open Meeting held in Edinburgh at the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh in March 1998. The guideline was submitted, in draft, for external peer review. Feedback from the National Meeting, specialist reviewers and other groups including a large audit group from the Health Boards was considered in detail by the guideline development group.