Dental health awareness amongst school children aged 5-10 years in Lahore sample

ABSTRACT

An investigation was carried out to assess the dental health awareness amongst school children aged 5 to 10 years in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. This cross-sectional survey included nine different schools of Lahore City having a total sample size of573. The assessment of the children's level of awareness was done by clinical examination of their teeth followed by an interview. One dentist carried out all dental examinations. The examiner recorded caries incidence in all erupted teeth. Following the clinical examination, children participated in an interview using a questionnaire. The questionnaire included information about gender, age, family structure, and information regarding tooth brushing habits, routine, knowledge about brushing, amount of tooth paste used, who taught them about brushing and visits to the dentist. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 19.0 and included descriptive statistics which was frequency distribution and cross-tabulation. It was found that teachers had played a very little role in educating the children about tooth brushing and providing dental awareness [6.8%]. It was the parents, however, who brought about more dental awareness in their children and gave them the necessary knowledge about oral hygiene [36.1%] especially male children. This association was highly statistically significant [p= 0.001]. Majority of the children used half-length of toothpaste for tooth brushing and this frequency increased 2 in 8 year olds therefore reducing their decayed missing filled teeth index score to a 0.31 as compared to 9 year olds [0.71]. A statistically significant association was also seen between age and toothpaste size [p= 0.003]