Prevalence of Dental Carries and Their Associated Risk Factors in Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Background: Oral health is an important part of overall health and wellbeing. Among different oral disorders, dental caries seems to afflict a vast number of people throughout the world, especially in developing countries like Pakistan. The aim of our study was to assess the prevalence of dental carries and their associated risk factors in tertiary care hospital Methodology: This cross-sectional study was carried out at the Dentil unit of Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar for duration of one year from January, 2021 to December, 2021. All the factors associated with the dental carries were documented on a pre-designed Performa. Data analysis was carried out by using IBM SPSS version 24. Results: In this study, 300 subjects were included. There were 174 (58%) males and females were 126 (42%). The prevalence of dental carries in our subjects was 53%. In this study, 261 (87%) subjects were observed to clean their teeth. Majority of the subjects 180 (60%) clean their teeth daily. The majority of the participants 225 (75%) use tooth brush for cleaning teeth. Sweets were consumed once a day by 210 (70%) participants. Most of the subjects (92%) did not clean their teeth after consuming sweets. Consumption of carbonated drink was observed in 180 (60%) subjects. In our study, 270 (90%) of the subjects have decayed teeth with mean Decayed Missing and Filled Teeth (DMFT) score of 3.59. Conclusion: Our study concludes that dental carries is highly prevalent in our population. Poor oral hygiene practices were observed in our study. Most of the participants were observed to clean their teeth just once a day. Poor dietary habit like high use of carbonated drinks was also observed in our study. Keywords: Prevalence; Dental carries; Risk factors, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa