engleski

Incidence of caries in children of rural and subrural areas in Croatia

The aim of this paper was to determine certain regularities in caries incidence in children in primary and permanent dentition in respect of clinical and non-clinical variables that can be collected in everyday dental practice. This way it could be easier for the operator to adjust individual preventive therapy of patients. The study was conducted on 301 subjects, aged 3-6 (74 subjects) and 11-14 (227 subjects) inhabitants of Petrinja and Topusko, postwar rural and subrural areas in Central Croatia. Using an oral hygiene questionnaire, habits, diet and use of fluoride were assessed. The clinical finding comprised the dental status, amount of stimulated saliva, oral hygiene index and the presence of orthodontic anomaly. Children showed very high values of the dmft/DMFT (decayed, missed, filled index) (7.7/6.7), dmfs/DMFS (16, 5/11, 8), and SiC index (10.89). The study confirmed correlation between the OHI (oral hygiene index) and dmft/DMFT and dmfs/DMFS index, and the influence of the regularity of dental check-ups and frequency of tooth brushing on OHI. Furthermore, the children that started practicing oral hygiene later, brush their teeth irregularly, and visit dentists only when having pain. It can be concluded that Croatia is still very far from achieving the goals set by WHO concerning oral health improvement.

caries ncidence; children; oral hygiene; caries risk assesment; postwar areas in Croatia

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