Association between Gender and Prevalence of Pit and Fissure Caries among Patients Visiting Private Dental College - A Retrospective study

Abstract

Oral health contributes to personal well being and overall quality of life of an individual. Adequate knowledge regarding oral health is mandatory as it is directly related to general health, so the Aim of our study was to determine the association between Gender and Prevalence of Pit and Fissure caries among the patients visiting Private Dental College. A retrospective study was conducted among the patients visiting private dental colleges using their case records in the electronic information management system. The subjects were selected randomly from the digital data entry and the data required was collected. The records were collected from the month of June 2019 to March 2020, with a total of 24,525 case sheets were retrieved. Age of the patients was categorized into 18 to 25 years, 26 to 35 years and 36 to 45 years. Case sheets which recorded Class 1 occlusal pit and fissure caries and gender of the patients were used for data analysis. Descriptive statistics, chi-square statistical tests were conducted using the SPSS software version 23.0. In our sample, 60.4% of males had 7-12 occlusal pit and fissure caries, and 58.3% had 4-6 Occlusal Pit and Fissure caries followed by 58.4% had 0-3 occlusal pit and Fissure caries. Comparatively the females had a lesser number of occlusal Pit and Fissure caries, and there was no statistically significant association between gender and occlusal pit and fissure caries (P<0.05) in our study. In conclusion, the prevalence of occlusal Pit and Fissure caries was higher among males compared to females with the highest distribution in the age group of 18 to 25 years.