Parafunctional oral habits and its relationship with family structure in a mexican preschoolers group, 2013.

Abstract

Introduction. Habit is any act acquired through experience and performed regularly and unconsciously. Parafunctional habits are resulting from the perversion of a normal function, acquired by repeated practice of an act that is not functional or necessary, may be signs of adjustment problems or inappropriate emotional expression. Its importance lies in the fact that they can interfere with the development of dental occlusion. Objective. To evaluate the prevalence of parafunctional oral habits and their possible association with the type of family, in a group of preschool children from eastern Mexico City. Methodology. Observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carrying on. Preschool children group and their parents were surveyed before an examiner calibration (k =0.87, p=0.001). The detection of different parafunctional habits was conducted in two stages: 1) application of a parent questionnaire and 2) clinical assessment of the child. Results and discussion. 57.7% of the studied population had at least one parafunctional oral habit. Onycophagia habit was the most prevalent. The relationship between prevalence of parafunctional habits with family type was significant (X2=87.439, p=0.0001). Conclusions. The prevalence of parafunctional habits was high which was associated with family type also the most frequent parafunctional habit onycophagia.

Keywords

• Prevalence Studies
• bruxism
• thumb sucking
• bottle feeding
• sucking behavior.