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| Year : 2009 | Volume
: 7
| Issue : 13 | Page : 54-59 |
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Prevalence of Dental Caries Among 12 and 15 Year old School Children in Chennai City
G Sunayana, Joseph John, S Saravanan, I Meignana Arumugham
Department of Public Health Dentistry, Saveetha Dental College, Chennai, India
Correspondence Address:
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
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Introduction - Dental caries is the most common orofacial problem with its impact worldwide. India is no exception to this ubiquitous problem. There is paucity of information regarding the frequency and prevalence of dental caries and oral hygiene status in many parts of India .An effort has been made to provide a baseline value on the dental caries prevalence of School children in Chennai city.
Aims and objectives: To assess the prevalence of dental caries among 12 and 15 year old school children in Chennai city.
Methods: A total of 3,315 school children in Chennai city were examined by multiphase cluster sampling technique. The 12 year olds consisted of 1,448 school children of which 706 were males and
742 were females. The 15 year olds consisted of 1,867 school children of which 959 were males and 908 were females. The data was collected and recorded on a preformed proforma sheet. The data was then processed and analyzed using the chi square test and the Z test. The level of significance was set at p=0.05
Results: The prevalence of dental caries among the 12 and 15 year old school children was 46.9% and 48.5% respectively. In the 12 year old age group, females had a higher prevalence (53.5%) while in the 15 year old age group, males had a higher prevalence (50.9%). The significant caries index values for the 12 and 15 year olds were 2.8 and 3.4 respectively.
Conclusion: The prevalence of dental caries is high in the 15 year old age group (48.9%) when compared to the 12 year old age group (46.5%). The 12 year old age group has the SiC value (2.8) which is in proportion with the WHO proposed value of 3 however the 15 year old age group has marginally higher SiC value (3.4).Hence it is recommended that oral health education and prevention strategies should be implemented at all levels of school education for promoting oral health
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