Kalita Chandana, Choudhary Bapukan, Saikia Anjan Kumar, Sarma Pratap Chandra
Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, Regional Dental College, Guwahati, Assam, India.
Department of Anthropology, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India.
J Indian Soc Pedod Prev Dent. 2016 Jul-Sep;34(3):249-56. doi: 10.4103/0970-4388.186755.
Dental caries is a multifactorial disease, causes of which are mostly understood nowadays. This disease is not only treatable but also preventable, if detected in its initial stage. In a developing country like India, facility of dental treatment is available mostly for urban population, whereas a very common approach of dental disease treatment is still traditional for the rural people.
The objective of this study was to find out the prevalence of dental caries, teeth cleaning methods, and sweet and soft drink-taking frequency among boys and girls of Guwahati City and its nearby semi-urban and rural areas.
Cross sectional study was carried out among school going boys and girls of 3-17 years group, using the modified WHO oral health survey form. The number of population was 2396 from urban locality, 2370 from semi-urban, and 2467 from rural.
Caries prevalence is much higher in urban (62.77%), contrary to rural where 76% of the sample is caries free. Those who take sweet occasionally suffered less or almost caries free (7.93% in urban and 0% in rural) than among those who consume it more than five times a day (90.75% in urban, 100% in semi-urban, and 99.33% in rural).
Urban localities are two times and semi-urban areas are 1.64 times more at risk of dental caries than rural areas. The odds ratio for cleaning frequency shows that the effect of cleaning by brush on caries is less (78%, not significant) than chewing stick while the risk associated with finger and charcoal use is about 19.63 times and 7.11 times, respectively.
龋齿是一种多因素疾病，如今其病因大多已为人所知。这种疾病不仅可治疗，而且如果在初始阶段被发现，也是可预防的。在印度这样的发展中国家，牙科治疗设施大多仅提供给城市人口，而农村人口对牙科疾病的治疗仍普遍采用传统方法。
本研究的目的是查明古瓦哈蒂市及其附近半城市和农村地区的男孩和女孩中龋齿的患病率、牙齿清洁方法以及甜食和软饮料的饮用频率。
采用改良的世界卫生组织口腔健康调查表，对3至17岁的在校男女生进行横断面研究。城市地区的人口数量为2396人，半城市地区为2370人，农村地区为2467人。
城市地区的龋齿患病率要高得多（62.77%），与之相反，农村地区76%的样本无龋齿。偶尔食用甜食的人患龋齿的情况较少或几乎无龋齿（城市地区为7.93%，农村地区为0%），而每天食用甜食超过五次的人患龋齿的比例则较高（城市地区为90.75%，半城市地区为100%，农村地区为99.33%）。
城市地区患龋齿的风险是农村地区的两倍，半城市地区是农村地区的1.64倍。清洁频率的优势比表明，刷牙对龋齿的预防效果（78%，不显著）低于嚼棍，而用手指和木炭清洁牙齿相关的风险分别约为嚼棍的19.63倍和7.1倍。
