Dental Caries Prevalence among 3 - 14 Year Old School Children of Chitwan

Abstract

Introduction: Dental caries, an infectious microbiologic disease of dental hard tissues is a global public health problem. It affects people of all ages with the highest priority risk group being school-going children.
 Objective: This study was done to assess the prevalence of dental caries in the 3-14 years old school children of Chitwan and to compare it across genders, age groups and school groups.
 Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted from January 2018 to May 2018 where WHO criteria was used to examine and calculate DMFT and dft (decayed filled teeth) indices among 360 school children. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS 20. Statistical significance was determined using independent t-test and ANOVA test.
 Results: The prevalence of the dental caries was found to be 85.83% with mean DMFT of 3.01 ± 2.24 among school children of Chitwan. Caries prevalence was higher in females compared to males, and in government schools compared to private school. Caries experience was highest in middle childhood group 7-12 years (89.20%, mean “DMFT+dft” 3.56 ± 2.33) followed by late childhood group of 13-14 years (84.72%, mean DMFT 2.68 ± 1.95) and early childhood group of 3-6 years (77.33%, mean dft 1.76 ± 1.60) and the differences were statistically significant. The difference in caries experience between private and government school groups as well as in male and female children was not statistically significant. 82.7% of the children had untreated caries while only 5.83% had filled teeth in their mouth.
 Conclusions: The prevalence of dental caries was higher in middle childhood group and higher percentage of untreated decays, calls for the need of immediate preventive as well as curative interventions.

Prevalence of Dental Caries among School Going Children in Dolakha, Nepal

“…8 This prevalence is also higher than the desired dental caries prevalence stated in the National oral health policy of Nepal. 9 Similar high prevalence rates were reported by Adhikari et al, 10 Type of schools were evaluated for dental caries status to see for possible changes. The present study showed that there is no significant differences among the caries status.…”

“…School going children of age 3-15 years were selected for the study. A study conducted by Adhikari et al 10 showed the prevalence dental caries as 63.83%. By considering this as a prevalence with 95% confidence interval, with 5% margin of error, sample size was determined based on the formula, n=z 2 pq/e 2 , were, Z= 1.96 for 95% confidence interval.…”

Prevalence Of Dental Caries Among Primary School Students In Madurai City, Tamilnadu, India

“…Dhar et al 4 , Garkoti et al 27 , Joshi et al 20 , Shitie A et al 21 and Wang Z et al 28 reported in their studies that caries prevalence was higheramong the boys than girls(66.91% and 59.03%; 60% and 56%; 80% and 73%; 57.7% and31.8%; 51.53% and 48.46% respectively). While contrastingly, a few studies by Rajesh et al 11 , Ahmed et al 15 , Sultana S et al 22 and Adhikari S et al 23 showed the dental caries prevalence was almost equal among the female and male students (34% and 31.8%; 30.7% and 31%; 81.8% and 83.8%; 86.48% and 85.14% respectively).…”

Prevalence of type of dental caries among the patients visiting a tertiary health care center in the Western region of Nepal

“…[5][6][7] However, in the context of Nepal, most studies regarding the prevalence of caries have been conducted among only children and adolescents. [8][9][10][11][12][13] A comprehensive insight into prevalence rates of dental caries among the adult population based on the type of dental caries has remained unexplored.…”