Prevalence of dental caries and the effect of sugar’s types, frequency of sugar intake and tooth brushing practice on dental caries among children aged 7-9 years in Wassit governorate-Iraq

Main Article Content

Hanan F. Abaas

Abstract

children in the world. The strength of the relationship between sugar intake and the prevalence of dental caries has
long been a subject of dispute. Some evidence suggests that sugar consumption is a very important determinate of
caries risk, accounting for as much as half of the variation in caries prevalence among human populations.
Therefore, the aim of this study was to study the effect of sugar's type, frequency of sugar intake and tooth brushing
practice on dental caries among children aged 7- 9 years of both genders in Wassit Governorate.
Methods: The sample was collected during period started from 1/September to 1/ November 2010. Information
about types of sugars intake, frequency of sugar intake and tooth brushing practice were collected by formation of
questionnaire to all children according to Yabao 2005. All children subjected to clinical examination to assessment of
DMFT and dmft according to WHO 1997. Data analyzed using statistics package for social science (spss Inc., 2000
version 10 for Windows and Excel 2000).
Results: Five hundred of schoolchildren in Wassit Governorate were examined belong to age group 7-9 years of both
gender (258 males and 242 females). The mean of DMFT was (1.3±1.4), while the mean of dmft was (4.5±2.5). The
prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth was 54% while in primary teeth was 93.2%, the prevalence of dental
caries increased with age in both primary and permanent teeth. The mean of DMFT in children taking hard candies,
soft drink, and ice-cream was (1.45±1.46), (0.99±1.33), (0.88±1.15) respectively, analysis of variance showed there was
significant difference between the mean of DMFT with different sugar’s types. Also in present study, the most sugar
sources taking by children were hard candies (68%) and soft drink (70%).The mean of DMFT and dmft increased with
increasing the frequency of sugar intake, analysis of variance showed there was significant difference between
mean of DMFT with frequency of sugar intake. The mean of DMFT and dmft was higher in children with no tooth
brushing practice than in children with tooth brushing practice; also the prevalence of dental caries in children with
no tooth brushing practice was 81% while in children with tooth brushing practice was 30.5%.
Conclusion: It was concluded that hard candies is more risky on dental caries than soft drink and ice cream and the
frequency of sugars intake effects on dental caries severity , also tooth brushing practice minimizes the dental caries
severity and prevalence.

Article Details

How to Cite
Abaas, H. (2017) “Prevalence of dental caries and the effect of sugar’s types, frequency of sugar intake and tooth brushing practice on dental caries among children aged 7-9 years in Wassit governorate-Iraq”, Journal of Baghdad College of Dentistry, 23(Special Is), pp. 151-154. Available at: http://jbcd.uobaghdad.edu.iq/index.php/jbcd/article/view/1582 (Accessed: 29November2019).
Section
Orthodontics, Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry