Oral Health status of 12-year-old Children in Public and .Private Schools in Benin City

Abstract

Objective: To ascertain the oral health status of 12 years olds in public and private schools in Benin City, Nigeria.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey involving a sample of 704 12 year old school children drawn from three Local Government Areas in Benin City, selected through multistage sampling technique. Simplified Oral Hygiene Index (OHI-S), Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPITN) and Decayed, Missing and Filled Teeth Index (DMFT) were used to assess their oral hygiene status, periodontal status and caries experience respectively.

Results: The prevalence of dental caries was 10.9%. Females 13.4% and participants from public school (11.4%) had higher prevalence of dental caries than their counterparts. It was only sex that was statistically significant (P=0.029). The mean DMFT was 1.18. Participants from private school had more severe caries (DMFT ≥2) compared to participants from public schools although it was not statistically significant (P=0.593). Sixty two point one percent (62.1%) of the participants had good oral hygiene Female (65.4%) had significantly higher good oral hygiene than males (58.9%) (P=0.043). The prevalence of periodontal disease among the participants was 39.9%. Periodontal disease was significantly higher in public school (47.7%) than private schools (32.0%) (P=0.000).

Conclusion: Our study revealed a lower prevalence of dental caries among the study population compared to the prevalence in the literature. However, prevalence of periodontal disease is relatively high corroborating other studies, while the mean DMFT is slightly higher than those reported by previous studies.

Keywords: Benin City, Children, Dental caries, oral health, periodontal disease