Dental caries and nutritional style amongst school children in Tripoli-Libya

Aya ME Kabar; Raga A Elzahaf; Farouk M Shakhatreh

Dental caries and nutritional style amongst school children in Tripoli-Libya

Authors
Aya ME Kabar, Raga A Elzahaf, Farouk M Shakhatreh

Abstract
Dental caries is a major public health problem and it is the most prevalent chronic disease. The aim of this study was to determine the association between dental caries using DMFT and nutritional style in Tripoli-Libya. A cross sectional study was conducted on 392 children in Tripoli/ Libya in the age group of 6–12 years. The prevalence of dental caries was assessed by DMFT/dmft index and a self-constructed questionnaire was used to assess nutritional style and nutritional habits. The data were analyzed by using SPSS software, version 24. Chi square test was applied to elaborate the significance of the association/ differences between study variables. The overall dental caries prevalence was 74.7%. Most of the children (77.1%) used the bottle-feeding, and 40 (13.2%) of those who used bottle-feeding their mothers mixed the milk with sugar. About two thirds of the children (68.9%) often drink soft drinks and (68.2%) eats sweets and chocolate all the time. There was statistically significant between the DMFT index and drinking soft drinks, drinking juice and insignificant relationship between DMFT and eating candy and chocolate. In conclusion, Dental caries amongst children in Tripoli/Libya is a common public health problem and prevalence of DMFT was affected by nutritional habits and nutritional style. Therefore, comprehensive oral health educational programs about dietary practices as nutritional style and nutritional habits and the appropriate oral hygiene habits for both children and their parents are needed in order to reduce dental caries among children.

Download | Pages : 101-106