Prevalence of dental caries among high school attendees in Qazvin, Iran

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of dental caries among high school students in Qazvin, Iran. Materials and Methods: Seven hundred and eighty randomly selected high school students participated in this study. There wer 315 (40.38%) boys and 465 (59.62%) girls of the ages of 15 and 16 years. They were examined for dental caries using World Health Organization (WHO) diagnostic criteria. The data were obtained from the epidemiological study of oral health carried out. Results: Of the total sample, only 24.5% were caries free, i.e.,the caries prevalence was 75.5%. The mean DMFT value for the total sample was 2.71 (± 0.86). Male students had a higher mean DMFT value (2.88 ± 0.61) than female students (2.54 ± 0.71) (P > 0.05). The mean DMFT value for the 15-year-old children was 2.66 (± 0.85) and for the 16-year-old children it was 2.76 (± 0.92). No statistically significant difference was found between male and female students. Also, no significant differences were seen.

Keywords

• Adolescent
• dental caries
• dental health surveys
• epidemiology
• DMFT index
• prevalence
• Iran