Prevalence of oral diseases among school children of Mysuru and Chamarajanagar districts, Karnataka, India

• Published in: Clinical epidemiology and global health Vol. 8; no. 3; pp. 725 - 727
• Main Authors: Shwethashree, M., George, Preetha Susan, Prakash, B., Smitha, M.C., Shabadi, Nayanabai, Narayana Murthy, M.R., Gopi, Arun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier, a division of RELX India, Pvt. Ltd 01.09.2020
• Subjects: Dental caries; Dental fluorosis; Oral cavity; School children; Dental caries; Oral cavity; School children; Dental fluorosis
• ISSN: 2213-3984; 2213-3984
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cegh.2020.01.009

Oral diseases are the most common disease that affect people throughout their life time. The Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 estimated that oral disease affects at least 3.58 billion people worldwide. Indian Dental Associations (IDA) drafted the National Oral Health Programme to address the burden of dental diseases and to bring about ‘optimal oral health’ for all by 2020. With this background, this study intends to assess the prevalence of oral diseases among school children from 3 years to 14 years, from both urban and rural areas, of Mysuru and Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka state, India. A cross sectional study was conducted in selected 44 schools of Mysuru and Chamarajanagar districts for a period of one academic year and a total of 9062 students were evaluated for oral diseases. Data was entered in Microsoft excel worksheet. Descriptive statistics like percentage was used. Inferential statistics were applied as needed using licensed version of SPSS 22. Inferential statistical test like Chi-square test was applied to find out the association and was expressed statistically significant at p-value less than 0.05. Among the 9062 children, 50.1% were males and 49.9% were females. Of the total students examined 61.9% were from rural area and 38.1% were from urban areas. There was no much difference in the prevalence of dental diseases among boys and girls and the prevalence of dental caries was high among the students attending urban schools (96.5%) as compared to rural area (86.1%), which was statistically significant. It was seen that aphthous ulcer (0.25%) constituted the most common oral comorbidities. The total prevalence of oral diseases, especially dental caries and dental fluorosis were 27.40% and 1.8% respectively.