Assessment of Prevalence of Dental Caries among School-going Children: A Cross-sectional Study.

BACKGROUND: The background of the study was to assess the prevalence of dental caries among school-going children.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Six thousand eight hundred and ninety school-going children was enrolled. General clinical examination was carried out. Mouth mirror, probe, and explorer were used for carrying out the clinical examination. Over a time span of 6 months, the entire study was completed. All the examiners who performed clinical examination underwent a single-day training program for detecting dental caries. All the participants were seated on straight wooden chairs and were examined clinically. The prevalence of caries was recorded.
RESULTS: The prevalence was 26.02%. Among these children with dental caries, 50.25% of the children belonged to the age group of 13-15 years, while the remaining 49.75% of the children belonged to the age group of 9-12 years. Prevalence of dental caries was significantly higher in females (71.11%) in comparison to males. Furthermore, dental caries was significantly more prevalent among participants with toothbrushing frequency of less than once a day (51.20%).
CONCLUSION: There is an imperative need for intimating health check-up camps among school-going children. Copyright:

INTRODUCTION

Historically, the diagnosis of bacterial etiology in caries development can be attributed to W. D. Miller in 1883. Despite centuries of evolution and breakthrough advancements in the medical facilities and armamentarium, a reduction in the occurrence and also in the prevention of dental caries has yet to be achieved by humankind.[1]

An upward drift in the dental caries is witnessed recently in the majority of the developing nation's world over. An increase in sugar intake and decreased fluoride exposure may be largely responsible for this. Thus, there has been a decrease in the emphasis on the fact that caries is youngster's pathology, and we are yet to achieve a significant reduction in the caries disease process.[23]

The recent trends in India indicate a rise in the health problems of oral region with the most predominant being dental caries, which has been showing a uniform upward surge over the last half of the previous century not only in the prevalence but also in the disease severity. Dental caries attacks the teeth of children of all ages requiring either restorative therapy or even pulp therapy. Apart from the mentally exhaustive and demanding nature of these treatments from a child's perspective, they are also not very economically viable. Hence, prevention of caries seems to be the most ideal and financially appropriate measure to be adopted. Thus, the collection of data regarding the prevalence of caries and the subsequent therapy requirements seems to be all the more important in chalking out a preventive course of action for this disease.[345] The present study was undertaken for assessing the prevalence of dental caries among school-going children.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The present study was conducted with the aim of assessing the prevalence of dental caries among school-going children of the known population. Only children between the age group of 9 and 15 years were included in the present study. A total of 6890 school-going children was enrolled. Complete demographic and clinical details of all the participants were obtained and were recorded in separate Pro forma. General clinical examination of all the patients was carried out. Mouth mirror, probe, and explorer were used for carrying out the clinical examination. Over a time span of 6 months, the entire study was completed. All the examiners who performed clinical examination underwent a single-day training program for detecting dental caries. All the participants were seated on straight wooden chairs and were examined clinically. The examination was done under natural daylight using the WHO criteria.[6] All the results were recorded in Microsoft Excel Sheet and were analyzed by SPSS software version 16.0 (IBM, Armonk, New York). Chi-square test was used for the evaluation of the level of significance.

RESULTS

In the present study, analysis, a total of 6890 school-going children was done. Among these participants, dental caries was found to be present in 26.02% of the children (1793 children). Hence, the overall prevalence of dental caries among school going children was 26.02% as shown in [Table 1]. Among these children with dental caries, 50.25% of the children belonged to the age group of 13–15 years, while the remaining 49.75% of the children belonged to the age group of 9–12 years as shown in [Table 2]. Prevalence of dental caries was significantly higher in females (71.11%) in comparison to males. Furthermore, dental caries was significantly more prevalent among participants with tooth brushing frequency of less than once a day (51.20%). It was also observed that dental caries was significantly more prevalent among children with the presence of plaque accumulation.

Table 1

Prevalence of dental caries

Parameter	Number of children (%)
Total children	6890 (100)
Prevalence of dental caries	1793 (26.02)

Table 2

Characteristics of children with dental caries

Parameter	Number of children (%)	P
Age group (years)
9-12	892 (49.75)	0.231
13-15	901 (50.25)
Gender
Males	518 (28.89)	0.000*
Females	1275 (71.11)
Tooth brushing frequency
Less than once a day	918 (51.20)	0.010*
Once a day	541 (30.17)
Twice per day	334 (18.63)
Plaque accumulation
Yes	1349 (75.24)	0.000*
No	444 (24.76)

*Significant

DISCUSSION

One of the important ingredients of general health is sound oral health, and dental caries has a detrimental effect on an individual's eating and speaking abilities. Dental caries, which develops over certain duration of time leading to tooth demineralization, is basically caused by microbes when multiple factors such as diet, host, and microbial flora interact with each other under optimum conditions. The evolution of dental caries can be linked to progressive human civilizations, and recently, it has come under increased focus due to its high morbidity potential. The experience of dental caries varies from country to country and also among the different regions of the same country. The expression of dental caries not only differs with age, sex, socioeconomic status, dietary habits, ethnic beliefs, general medical condition of individuals, and overall oral hygiene but also has a variable frequency and distribution on different teeth and also their surfaces. Apart from putting a financial stress, it also leads to severe discomfort and pain. Health professionals have long been trying to find out ways to prevent the occurrence of dental caries. Scientists all over the world are carrying out research activities to identify the best possible means to diagnose, treat, and also to prevent the occurrence of dental caries. Of late, the emphasis on the prevention of disease and conservation of tooth structure has replaced the old surgical means for treating dental caries.[78910]

Six thousand eight hundred and ninety school children were assessed. The prevalence of carious lesions was 26.02%. Our results were in concordance with the results obtained by previous authors, who also reported similar findings. A higher caries prevalence rate was observed in girls by Misra and Shee and Saimbi et al. No significant difference in the prevalence was observed by Shetty and Tandon and Addo-Yobo et al. A variable distribution of age groups and the geographical locations may be responsible for the differences observed in different surveys and studies.[11121314] Karunakaran et al. assessed 850 children. Four calibrated examiners per school were given the responsibility to calculate the decay, missing, and filled teeth (dmft) index of each child in their own respective schools. Their demographic details were also recorded. It was observed in the study that almost 65.88% of the school children had dental caries (560 out of 850). 2.86 came out to be the mean dmft score. Incidence of dental caries has been reported to be higher among boys.[15]

In the present study, dental caries was significantly more prevalent among participants with tooth brushing frequency of less than once a day (51.20%). It was also observed that dental caries was significantly more prevalent among children with the presence of plaque accumulation. Hiremath et al. carried out a cross-sectional study, in which 6–11 years school-going children. The gross caries prevalence came out to be 78.9%. Mean dmft and mean DMFT came out to be 2.97 ± 2.62 and 0.17 ± 0.53, respectively.[16] Untreated oral diseases often lead to loss of valuable school time in children due to the development of grave general health problems, excruciating pain, and eating difficulties. The pertinent use of fluorides has been responsible for a decline in cases of dental caries in the advanced nations. Whereas on the one hand, high level of caries protection can be achieved with pertinent and judicious use of fluoride therapy, inappropriate and injudicious usage may inadvertently result in chronic fluoride toxicity, which may ultimately lead to dental and skeletal fluorosis.[171819]

CONCLUSION

A significant proportion of school-going children is affected by dental caries. Hence; there is an urgent need of intimating oral health checkup camps among school-going children to control the disease at an early age.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.