ABSTRACT
Objectives: To determine the factors associated with dental caries in the primary and permanent dentition of children attending a paediatric dentistry clinic at a public university in central Mexico.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed using the medical records from 309 patients aged 2 to 12 years who attended the Paediatric Dentistry Specialty Clinic at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico between January 2014 and December 2015. The dependent variables were the experience of caries for each dentition (dmft index for primary dentition and DMFT index for permanent dentition), which were obtained from the clinical history in the diagnostic records. The independent variables were diverse sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and oral and general health indicators. Statistical analysis was performed using nonparametric tests in Stata.
Results: The mean age was 5.71±2.43 years and 50.8% were men. The mean dmft index was 8.53±4.18 (prevalence=99%), while the DMFT index was 1.91±2.02 (prevalence=58.9%). The variables age, number of siblings, presence of syndrome, dental pain experience, dental pain presence, as well as oral hygiene with help showed statistically significant differences with dmft. Similarly, age, number of siblings, and dental pain experience were statistically significant with DMFT.
Conclusions: The caries experience observed in this sample of self-selected patients was high. We identified several variables associated with dental caries in both dentitions.
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