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Caries severity, dental knowledge, and behavior among a group of children attending Preventive Clinic College of Dentistry, University of Basrah
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| Author:
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SARAH W. AL-ABBASI, ADIL G FADIL, ALAA H. ABED
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| Abstract:
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Background: Dental caries is a chronic sugar-dependent infectious disease, and is the most frequent oral disease in children. An important requirement for health-related practices and protection from dental caries is knowledge. If persons preserve their oral health, they become free of oral disease that will get a good result. This study was conducted to investigate the severity of dental caries, dental knowledge, and behavior among a group of children attending the Preventive Clinic at the College of Dentistry/ University of Basrah.
Materials and Methods: A total of 197 children with an age ranged from 8 to 14 years were involved in this study, those who came to the preventive clinic to join the preventive program. Dental caries was assessed in accordance with criteria designated by the WHO. The dental knowledge of all child was estimated by ten questions structured for this reason.
Results: A total of 197 children aged 8-14 years with an average of 9.62± 1.93 years participated in the study. The males constituted about 47.7% (94 children), while the females were 103 (53.3%). Most children in this study were found to have good dental knowledge, and use and frequency of dental brush (91%, 62%, and 77%, respectively). There were no significant differences in answers according to age. Regarding gender, there were no significant statistical differences between answers, except for the questions "Do you find that keeping the mouth clean can result in healthy teeth and gum?" and "Could teeth loss change your appearance?"; where females answered more correct than males with statistical significance of (p<0.05). Caries prevalence in all primary teeth dmfs indices were negatively correlated to age with statistical significance (p<0.05), while secondary teeth DMFS indices were positively correlated to age with a high statistical significance (p<0.01).
Conclusion: The results of this study have shown that children are orientated toward dental protection or tooth brushing, and this is an essential requirement to prevent dental caries. However, most children who have knowledge about oral care, they do not have the attitude to conduct behavior.
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| Keyword:
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caries severity, dental knowledge, dental behavior, children
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| EOI:
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-
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| DOI:
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https://doi.org/10.31838/ijpr/2021.13.01.510
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| Download:
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