Abstract
BackgroundDental caries is the most prevalent chronic disease in early childhood in most communities worldwide. Several studies conducted in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries have documented a high prevalence of early childhood caries (ECC). To date, no studies have been conducted in Qatar to examine the prevalence of ECC and enamel developmental defects in preschool children. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of ECC and enamel defects in preschool children aged four and five years attending kindergartens in Qatar.MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional study was performed among 250 children randomly selected from 16 public kindergartens. Caries experience was measured using the World Health Organization caries criteria (dmft) for tooth rather than surface; enamel defects were scored by the modified developmental defects of enamel index. Descriptive statistics and Chi-Square test of relatedness were used.ResultsA response rate of 63 % was reported. The overall caries prevalence of the study sample was 89.2 %; 15.6 % of the examined children had ECC and 73.6 % had severe ECC. Developmental enamel defects were present in 39 % of children and 27 % had demarcated enamel opacities.ConclusionThe high rate of dental caries and enamel defects recorded in this study for this young age group has strongly emphasized the necessity of community-based preventive programs and professional care that should begin during pregnancy and in early childhood.
Highlights
Dental caries is the most prevalent chronic disease in early childhood in most communities worldwide
Given the high prevalence figure of early childhood caries (ECC) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region the estimated prevalence of dental caries in Qatar would not be less than 50 % and the marginal error was set at 2.5 %; 400 subjects were approached in order to reach the required sample size
No significant difference in the prevalence of ECC and s-ECC was found by comparison of age and gender (Table 2)
Summary
Dental caries is the most prevalent chronic disease in early childhood in most communities worldwide. Several studies conducted in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries have documented a high prevalence of early childhood caries (ECC). No studies have been conducted in Qatar to examine the prevalence of ECC and enamel developmental defects in preschool children. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of ECC and enamel defects in preschool children aged four and five years attending kindergartens in Qatar. The disease is diagnosed as Severe Early Childhood Caries (s‐ECC) in children aged three to five years, where there is one or more decayed, filled or missing (due to caries) lesions in a maxillary anterior tooth or dmft of ≥ 4 (at age 3), ≥ 5 (at age 4), ≥ 6 (at age 5)” [3]. Research proves that untreated tooth decay in children causes
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