Prevalence of Dental Caries among Children of Aged 6-12 Years in Tamilnadu - A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Dental caries is a serious public health problem in developed as well as developing nations, with high prevalence among children around the world. This systematic review of literature was undertaken to document the prevalence of dental caries. Aims and Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of dental caries among children of aged 6-12 years in Tamilnadu by conducting a systematic review. Materials and Method: Studies evaluating the prevalence of dental caries among children of aged 6-12 years in the Tamilnadu were investigated. An extensive literature search was done in the following databases: Prospero, Grey literature, Science Direct, Cochrane library, Wiley online library, Lilacs and PubMed. The articles were retrieved from each database based on the MeSH representation. A modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for cross-sectional studies was used for assessment of the quality of the studies. A systematic literature search yielded 1034 publications from the various databases searched. According to the Preferred Reporting Items for systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses and based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the final number of included studies was fifteen. Results: Among the included studies, five studies were carried out in the Chennai district. Erode district was found to have the highest prevalence of dental caries at 89.3%. Conclusion: This review has reported a high prevalence of dental caries in Tamilnadu. None of the states reported prevalence below 30%. The government should identify dental caries as a national priority which requires significant attention. Keywords: Dental caries, Prevalence, Tamilnadu, Newcastle-Ottawa Scale.