Association between Child Abuse and Poor Oral Habits in Mongolian Adolescents.

(1) This study aimed to investigate the association between child abuse and oral habits in adolescents in Mongolia. (2) A cross-sectional survey was conducted with children and their caregivers in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Parents of 770 children enrolled in two public schools in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, completed questionnaires regarding the physical and psychological abuse that their children were subjected to and the presence of poor oral habits (biting nails/lips/pens and bruxism). Multivariable Poisson regression models were fitted with adjustment for age, gender, age of the mother, parental education, family income level, birth order, and living status with grandparents. (3) Biting nails/lips/pens and bruxism were reported by 39.0% and 17.5% of the respondents, respectively. Biting nails/lips/pens was significantly associated with physical abuse but was not significantly associated with psychological abuse (prevalence ratio, PR [95% confidence interval, CI]: 1.44 [1.07-1.95] and 1.34 [0.98-1.83], respectively). However, bruxism was not associated with physical or psychological abuse (PR [95% CI]: 1.16 [0.77-1.77] and 1.04 [0.68-1.61], respectively). (4) Child abuse was associated with biting habits among Mongolian adolescents.

Association between Smoking during Pregnancy and Short Root Anomaly in Offspring.

Short root anomaly (SRA) is a dental anomaly with short dental roots and its pathogenesis is poorly understood. This study investigated the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and SRA in offspring. A survey was conducted on 558 children aged 8-16 years from two public schools in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. SRA was diagnosed using cases with a root-crown ratio of maxillary central incisors of ≤1.0. A questionnaire survey was conducted to assess maternal lifestyle habits. Multiple logistic regression was used to analyse the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and SRA in offspring after adjusting for possible confounders. The prevalence of SRA in these children was 14.2%. Children whose mothers smoked from pregnancy to date were found to be 4.95 times (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.65-14.79) more likely to have SRA than those whose mothers never smoked, after adjusting for possible confounders. Additionally, children whose mothers had been exposed to passive smoking during pregnancy were found to be 1.86 times (95% CI: 1.02-3.40) more likely to have SRA than those whose mothers had not been exposed to passive smoke. Our population-based study suggests that maternal and passive smoking exposure during pregnancy can affect tooth root formation in children.

Associations between Malocclusion and Oral Health-Related Quality of Life among Mongolian Adolescents.

Malocclusion may affect oral health-related quality of life (OHR-QoL), however, the previously detected associations were affected by confounding factors. We hypothesized that there is indeed an association between OHR-QoL and malocclusion and investigated in a population-based study of 420 Mongolian adolescents mean age: 12.6 (standard deviation (SD) = 1.09) years from two secondary schools, located in an urban and a suburban area. We randomly selected two classes from each school. The Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (IOTN) was used to assess malocclusion. OHR-QoL was assessed using the Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ). Multivariate analysis was used to determine whether malocclusion had an independent effect on OHR-QoL. Overall, the existence of any type of malocclusion was not significantly associated with CPQ results. However, increased overjet was significantly associated with oral symptoms (coefficient: 0.66, 95% CI: 0.14-1.19), functional limitations (coefficient: 0.62, 95% CI: 0.17-1.08), and social well-being (coefficient: 0.50, 95% CI: 0.06-0.93). Deep bite was also significantly associated with oral symptoms (coefficient: 0.54, 95% CI: 0.23-0.84) and functional limitations (coefficient: 0.45, 95% CI: 0.19-0.72). Although malocclusion per se was not significantly associated with OHR-QoL, specific types of malocclusion, i.e., increased overjet and deep bite, were associated with OHR-QoL.