Abstract
BackgroundDental caries is one of the most prevalent diseases of childhood in developing countries. However, there is a paucity of epidemiological data on the prevalence and associated factors of dental caries in Eritrea. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and associated factors of dental caries among 12 years old school children in Eritrea.MethodsA school based cross sectional study was conducted among 225 twelve years old students in two selected schools. One school from randomly selected urban and rural subzones of the country were selected. WHO adopted questionnaire and a standard checklist were used to collect relevant data. To assess dental caries, two examiners were calibrated by a certified dentist and inter observer agreement was calculated using the Cohen’s Kappa statistic (0.82). All data analysis was done using SPSS version 20.ResultsThe prevalence of dental caries was 78%, without significant difference between males (78%) and females (79%).The mean DMFT value was 2.50 (±2.21). The decayed component contributed 98.3% of the score as it had 2.44 (±1.2) share to the mean DMFT value. The first molar was the most affected tooth with a DMFT value of 1.55 (±1.36). The mean significant caries index score (SiC) was 4.97 (±1.9) which is higher than the upper limit of SiC value of 3 set by the WHO as a global average. More than half of the respondents had never visited a dentist and out of the students who had utilized a dental health facility, 82% of visits were due to dental pain while visits for regular checkups were cited by only 6.6% of the respondents.ConclusionDental caries was found to be a common public health problem among 12 years old Eritrean students. The prevalence of dental caries, mean DMFT and SiC scores were higher than the average score of other developing countries. Gaps in dental health service utilization, dental health practices and suboptimal water fluoride levels contribute to poor dental health among school children in Eritrea.
Highlights
Dental caries is one of the most prevalent diseases of childhood in developing countries
Socio demographic characteristics Out of the 225 participants included in the study, 121 (53.8%) were females
The majority of the respondents (94.2%) were Christian and the Tigrigna ethnic group comprised 96.9% of the study population while Tigre and Saho accounted for 2.7% and 0.4% respectively
Summary
Dental caries is one of the most prevalent diseases of childhood in developing countries. There is a paucity of epidemiological data on the prevalence and associated factors of dental caries in Eritrea. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and associated factors of dental caries among 12 years old school children in Eritrea. Dental caries is the most prevalent disease of childhood, affecting 60– 90% of all children [2]. The dentist to population ratio is about 1 per 150,000 people, making the provision of dental health services difficult [3]. In Eritrea, the dentist to population ratio is 1 per 303,185 people This is exacerbated due to generally poor dental health facility infrastructure and low dental health related knowledge and practice in the general public [4]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
