بررسي ميزان تجربه پوسيدگي دنداني كودكان 6-2 ساله و ارتباط آن با وضعيت اجتماعي- اقتصادي والدين آنها در مهد كودك هاي بيرجند- ايران در سال 1385

Dental Caries Experience and its Relationship to Socio-Economic Factors in 2-6 Year Old Kindergarten Children in Birjand - Iran in 2007

Introduction: Assessing oral health in children plays an important role in determining the health status and health promotion programs of communities. This survey was carried out to study dental caries experience of preschool children in Birjand and factors affecting their caries stata. Materials & Methods: In this analytical-descriptive study, approved by ethical committee of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, 434 children aged 13-72 months were randomly selected from kindergartens in the city of Birjand and examined for dental caries using WHO criteria. A questionnaire concerning Socio- economic background was filled by their parents. Data analysis was performed using the software SPSS, Mann-Whitney, Chi-Square, Kruskull Wallis and Logistic Regression tests were used. The level of statistical significance for all tests was set at P0.05. Results: The overall mean dmft score in children of the study was 4.99±4.11 and dmfs was 7.88±8.45. The prevalence of caries free children was 16.1% and early childhood caries (ECC) and severe early childhood caries (SECC) were 83.7% and 50.2% prevalent respectively. There was a decrease in the proportion of caries free children with an increase in age (jPO.OOI). The children whose parents (especially mother) had attained a higher education level had lower dmft scores. The children whose mothers were occupied had lower dmft scores (P<0.001). Conclusion: Our results indicate the high caries prevalence in children in Biijand and parentʹs educational level as a contributing factor. Therefore there is a need for educational programs to prevent caries especially for children from lower socio-economic classes.