Prevalence of fluorosis among children aged 12 years, living in urban and peri-urban areas of Quetta district, Balochistan

ABSTRACT

Fluorosis is a condition of structural disorder of the tooth surface during tooth development, which is denoted as enamel hypoplasia. The most common cause of dental fluorosis is the chronic exposure to excessive fluoride particularly in drinking water at the younger age. The aims of this study were to determine prevalence of fluorosis among primary school children in urban and peri-urban areas of Quetta district. Cross sectional study. This study was conducted at Bolan Medical College, Quetta for a period of one month from March to April 2009. Clinical dental examination of school children aged 12 years was conducted for evidence of dental fluorosis using Dean's fluorosis index and the criteria mentioned in WHO oral health surveys methods 4[th] edition 1997. A total of 153 school children aged 12 years,78 [51%] boys and 75 [49%] girls, who have lived in urban and rural areas of Quetta sub district, were randomly selected from the four schools including boys and girls both. Fluorosis was found to be more prevalent in urban school children [60%] as compared with children living in peri-urban areas [47%] with OR .614 [.323, 1.166] and p-value .135. The boys had a slightly higher prevalence of fluorosis as compared with girls 56% and 52% respectively. OR .837 [.443, 1.582] and p-value .584 recorded which were not statically significant. This study highlighted the high prevalence of fluorosis, more than half of the school children, in urban and rural areas of Quetta district Pakistan. Comparatively, fluorosis is more prevalent in urban areas than in rural