Factors influencing development of caries teeth.

A cross sectional study was conducted on the children of 146 randomly selected urban families of Abha, Saudi Arabia, to find out the common factors associated with caries teeth. The factors considered for association were per capita monthly income, sources of drinking water, consumption of soft drinks, daily brushing of teeth, daily consumption of candy, and the education levels of mothers. All children up to 12 years of age were examined by visiting their families. The results showed that the per capita monthly income, sources of drinking water and habit of drinking soft drinks had no significant relation with the prevalence rates of caries teeth in children. But the habit of nonbrushing of teeth daily, daily consumption of candies, and low or no education of mothers had significant association with the presence of caries teeth. Adequate health education of children about the ill effects of these practices and raising the educational levels of mothers and prospective mothers may contribute towards achieving dental health by the year 2000 as targetted by the World Health Organization.

Teething pattern and prevalence of dental caries.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on the children of 146 randomly selected families in Abha, Saudi Arabia. Counting of teeth and examination for caries teeth of children under 12 years of age were done by family visits. The results showed that no child developed teeth before 5 months. By 12 months there were on an average 3.3 teeth erupted per child, and by three years 18.8 teeth. At 12 years of age there were 24.4 teeth per child as compared to 28 in other countries. The DMF (decayed, missing and filled) index of children increased from 1.8 at the age of 4 to 5.1 at 7 and 5.2 at 10 years of age. The rate of caries teeth was higher than that in Australia, Great Britain, USA, India, China and Sudan. Further investigations on causes of high rate of caries teeth are recommended.