Prevalence assessment of periodontal disease in 3-5 year old children through PSR--population study.

This study aimed at verifying, through the PSR scoring system, the prevalence of periodontal disease in a very young population. A sample of 500 children aged 3-6 years, which represented a selected health district in the State of Bahia were assessed. All the children presented a full deciduous dentition and were examined in their own schools or day nurseries by one trained examiner. The PSR system showed an intra-examiner reproducibility of r = 1; P < 0.0001 for sextants S1, S2, S3, S5 and S6 and r = 0.92; P < 0.0001 for sextant S4 through Spearman's correlation analysis. As observed in the previous pilot study a high prevalence and a low severity of parameters related to periodontal disease were found. A statistically higher prevalence of PSR code 2 (83.40%) [79.84 - 86.56] CI 95% when compared to PSR codes 0 (15.80%) [12.71 - 19.30] CI 95% and 1 (0.80%) [0.22 - 2.03] CI 95% were shown. There was no case of PSR codes 3 or 4, neither for the special code*. There was no statistically significant difference between female and male children for any PSR code. However, unlike the pilot study, 3-year-old children presented significantly more PSR code 0 and significantly less PSR code 2 as well as code (1+2) compared to 4- and 5-year olds. In this study S5 presented significantly fewer cases of PSR code 0 and significantly more cases of PSR code 2 than other sextants. The usage of the PSR system was considered to be highly advantageous for its simplicity and good acceptance by the children. Nevertheless, the authors suggest special attention regarding anatomical dimensions of periodontal tissues surrounding deciduous dentition in future screening surveys in young children.