CARIES EXPERIENCE AMONG 15-YEARS OLD STUDENTS FROM STRUMICA CITY

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess dental caries in 15-year-old students attending two regular public secondary schools in Strumica city.

Methods: In 2014, during this cross-sectional study, 545 secondary school students (born in 1997/98), from first grades were selected from 2 public secondary schools. The ethics committee of the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of St Cyril and Methodius approved the study and parental consent was obtained for each child. Dental status was evaluated using the 2013 World Health Organization caries diagnostic criteria for Decayed, Missing or Filled Teeth (DMFT) by 2 calibrated examiners. Data obtained during the survey were stored in a database and the R software environment for statistical computing was used (http:// www.r-project.org/) and tested for possible statistically significant differences using the Kruslal- Wallis ANOVA test. A p value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Participants dental status was evaluated using the 1997 World Health Organization caries diagnostic criteria for Decayed, Missing or Filled Teeth (DMFT) by 2 calibrated examiners.

Results: The total number of children in the sample was 545, comprising 206 (37.8%) females and 339 (62.2%) males. The mean DMFT was 3.36 (Standard Deviation = 2.99) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of 3.11-3.61. One- way analysis of variance (ANOVA) show p-value of 0.01560 (p < 0.05), which means that there was a statistically significant differences between mean DMFT scores for individuals who live in urban (3.81) and rural (3.12) areas. One- way analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows that there was a statistically significant differences between mean DMFT scores for males (3.04) and females (3.88). Significant caries (SiC) index was 6.69. The prevalence of caries-free children was 19.1%. The percentage of untreated caries or the ratio of DT/DMFT was 0.4386 (43.8%).

Conclusions: Dental caries experience was seen to be moderate among secondary school children from Strumica city and its surrounding. The DMF index data in adolescents from Strumica city show that dental caries is still a public health problem indicating that actions must be taken at national and local level.