Prevalence and comparison of dental caries in 12 year old school going children in rural and urban areas of Ferozepur city using sic index

Introduction: Dental caries afflicts humans of all ages and in all regions of the world. The distribution and severity of oral diseases vary in different parts of the world and within the same region. The epidemiological studies help in assessment of need for planning of oral health services or organization of public health intervention programmes. Materials and method: The present study was undertaken to estimate and compare the prevalence of dental caries in 12 years old school going children in rural and urban sets of population in Ferozepur City using SiC index. A school based survey was administered to 1000 school going children residing in urban and rural areas of Ferozepur city, Punjab. 500 subjects each from age group of 12 years + 11 months were randomly selected using stratified sampling method from respective areas. Data was collected through a questionnaire and clinical examination was done by a single examiner using BOHS (Basic Oral Health Survey) method. DMFT (Decayed, Missing and Filled teeth) was measured according to WHO (World Health Organization) criteria and SiC(Significant index of caries) values were calculated and compared including risk factors like socioeconomic status, oral hygiene measures, parent’s education, frequent snacking and dietary habits. Results: The overall prevalence of dental caries was found to be 47.8%.Rural study population had higher caries prevalence of 53.8% as compared to the urban with a prevalence of 39.8%.The caries prevalence was higher in females (50.8%) as compared to males (44.8%). The mean DMFT of the total study population was 1.17 with the mean DMFT values amongst rural and urban population of 1.43 and 0.92 respectively. The mean SiC value of the study population was 2.99 with a value of 2.55 in urban and 3.42 in rural study population. Discussion: The prevalence of dental caries score showed significant association with all independent variables like brushing frequency, visit to dentist, dietary habits, gender, sweetened milk, parent’s education and frequency of snacking in descending order. The lack of dental health awareness, poor oral hygiene measures, socioeconomic status, gender variations, improper dietary habits and less utilization of dental health care services in Ferozepur are the risk factors associated with the high prevalence of dental caries. Correspondence to: Bhawna Arora, Department of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Adesh institute of dental sciences & research, Bathinda, India; E-mail: [email protected]