Dental ailments among low and high socioeconomic status school children aged 11-12 years

ABSTRACT

A cross sectional study was undertaken to compare the dental ailments in school children's among low and high socioeconomic status. The data was randomly collected from children, of two schools one in Private sector [High socioeconomic status, Group A] and one in Public sector [Low socioeconomic status, Group B] from Sep 2011 to Oct 2011. School going children boys and girls were selected, and the final sample size was 216, one hundred and eight from each group with ages 11-12 years and with mean of 11.57 and SD of +/- .659, the levels of DMFT were identified by clinical examination only, using WHO standardize forms for data collection. There was high percentage [62.06%] of DMFT with SD +/- 1.84 and with mean 1.44 in the low SES group compared to the [50%] of DMFT with high SES group. The oral hygiene status was good in high SES compared to low SES