Dental Caries in Pakistan. A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

BackgroundOptimum oral health is impossible to achieve without managing dental caries. The first step to manage dental caries at community level is to know its prevalence, and trend. Unfortunately, prevalence of dental caries at national/regional level is not known in many developing countries. Pakistan is of no exception. The present meta-analysis was planned to document prevalence of dental caries at national, as well as regional level. This paper will serve as baseline for making future health policies, and health promotion activities in the country.MethodsLiterature was searched through various databases, such as PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of science using: "Prevalence", "Dental Caries", "Dental Decay" and "Severity" as keywords. Any study that reported prevalence of dental caries, and was conducted in Pakistani population was included. Thirty studies fulfilled the mentioned criteria, and was included. Quality assessment of all the included studies was performed using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklist for prevalence studies. MedCalc software was used to analyses the data.ResultsIn total 26952 subjects were included in meta-analysis from 30 studies. The prevalence estimate of dental caries at national level was 56.32 % (95% CI: 49.326 to 63.197). The I2 value was 99.07% (95% CI: 98.94 to 99.18), (I2 > 75%) indicating heterogeneity , hence pooled proportion was reported using random effect model. The prevalence estimate of dental caries in Sindh was 58.135% (95% CI: 43.906 to 71.705), and in Punjab it was 53.95% (95% CI: 44.179 to 63.57), whilst in Baluchistan and KPK combined was 51.17% (95% CI: 22.930 to 79.004).ConclusionBased on the existing data nearly 60 % of Pakistani population have dental caries. The proportion is almost same in all provinces. Most of the included studies found to be of high risk.