Prevalence of dental caries and treatment needs for school going children in rural and urban areas of Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

Background and Objective: Dental caries is the most prevalent dental affliction of childhood and the most common cause of tooth loss in children. Even though many caries prevalence studies have been conducted in different parts of the country, still there is a great deficiency in comparative studies between urban and rural population, particularly in southern Indian states. Hence the objective of this study was to provide the baseline data of caries prevalence. Materials and Methods: A total of 1862 children of both the sexes in the age groups between 7-12yrs and 13-16yrs from various government residential schools in rural and urban areas of Guntur district were examined using WHO (1997) criteria and the data was analyzed. Results: The overall prevalence of caries in the study population was 45.91%.In rural population, 47.04% of children had caries and mean deft/DMFT was 2.637 where as in urban population, 40.52% had caries and mean deft/DMFT was 2.723.Though the caries prevalence was more in rural population, DMFT scores was slightly high in urban study population when compared to rural study population, but it was not statistically significant. The decayed component contributed maximum to total DMFT .Overall, caries was more prevalent among males and prevalence of dental caries was increasing with advancement of age. Regarding treatment needs, 50.32% of rural children and 45.52% of urban children required dental treatment for varies reasons and it is in accordance with dental caries prevalence of different age groups. Conclusion: Dental caries showed to be a significant health issue in the school children requiring immediate attention.