Abstract
Introduction: Dental caries is a disease that affects all age groups, most commonly children. Dental caries in preschool and school children represents a health and a social problem, especially when the provision of preventive measures and the provision of treatment are poor.
Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of caries among children in Kosovo, expressed by the DMFT/dmft-index.
Methods: Between 2005 and 2008, a large sample of 4290 children (2- to 14-years old) were randomly selected from different kindergartens and schools in Kosovo municipalities. Dental caries was evaluated using standard WHO (1997) oral survey methods. The teeth were clinically examined by six calibrated examiners with standard dental instruments using a visual-tactile method under a standard dental light. The numbers of decayed, missed, and filled teeth (dmft/DMFT) were recorded. The examiners were calibrated, to achieve inter-examiner reliability measured by the kappa index. The resulting data were entered in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 13) and statistically tested with either the Chi-squared test or one-way ANOVA. The level of statistical significance was set at p=0.05. The study was approved by the Ethics Board of the University Dentistry Centre of Kosovo and consent was obtained from the parents of the children and the managements of the schools involved.
Results: The six examiners achieved an inter-examiner reliability score of kappa = 0.92. The total number of preschool children examined was , 1400 and in this group , the prevalence of dental caries was 91% and the mean dmft was 5.4. The lowest mean dmft was found in the 2 year olds (2.1), and the highest in the 5 and 6 year olds (7.9 and, 7.5 respectively) . The prevalence of Early Childhood Caries was around 21% with mean dmft of around 11. There was no significant difference between gender (p<0.005). In the 2890 school children who were examined the prevalence of dental caries was 90%. The mean DMFT of these school children was 6.3. The greatest contribution to the DMFT index was untreated caries, which varied from 2.0 for 7-year-olds to 6.4 for 14- year-olds. The mean DMFT of school children increased with age, with a statistically significant difference between the age groups, (p<.001).
Conclusions: High mean dmft/DMFT values in Kosovo children, according to the WHO criteria for oral health assessment, are alarming and suggest the need for emergency measures to improve the current situation. Since dental caries represents a serious medical and public health problem in Kosovo, a major preventive programme for oral health promotion is needed.
The presenter of this abstract (3507) received a Borrow Travel Award
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