Oral Health and Dental Management

Dental caries among children and its risk factors: A systematic review

7^th Global Dentists and Pediatric Dentistry Annual Meeting

March 31- April 01, 2016 Valencia, Spain

Yazeed A Alhabdan, A Albeshr and A Alzahem

King Saud bin Abdul-Aziz University for Health Sciences, Saudi Arabia

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Oral Health Dent Manag

Abstract:

Introduction: Dental caries is one of the most common diseases and most cause of tooth loss in young people. It is painful and can harm nutrition and overall health. However, having baseline information about oral health status is important for planning and evaluation of the improvement in oral health. Objective: Determine prevalence of dental caries among children and identify the associated risk factors. Method: An electronic search conducted to identify articles in Pub-Med that met our inclusion criteria. A total of 43 articles were identified initially and after applying exclusion criteria a total of ten articles were selected for this systematic review. Results: Prevalence of caries in primary dentation of children fewer than 6 years ranged from 73-99% and the mean DMFT score ranged from 2.92�??6.53. In the permanent dentition, the prevalence varied from 87.9-99% and the mean DMFT ranged from 0.78 to 5.94. Prevalence of caries in primary teeth was higher in the urban population. §Poor oral hygiene, dental health knowledge, frequency consumption of cariogenic food, developmental enamel defect and the use of some medication which affect salivary flow rate were found as possible risk factors. A strong possible link was found between poor oral hygiene and prevalence of dental caries with a prevalence of 57.8%. Conclusion: Dental caries is a serious dental public health problem that warrants the immediate attention. Oral health education programs must be deployed and school based approaches should be combined with family and community preventive programs. However, dental caries is both curable and preventable. Therefore, dental caries should be given the top priority and the full resources.

Biography :

Abdulhameed G Albeshr earned his BDS degree from King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2010. In 2015, he completed his Master of public health in community and environmental health in King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Email: yah11@hotmail.com