Department of Health Sciences, College of Natural and Health Sciences, Zayed University, P.O. Box 144534, Abu-Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
BMC Oral Health. 2021 May 4;21(1):237. doi: 10.1186/s12903-021-01482-7.
Dental caries risk factors have been expanded to not only emphasize biology, dietary and oral habits but also broader social determinants such as socioeconomic factors and the utilization of health services. The aim was to review sociobehavioural/cultural and socioeconomic determinants of dental caries in children residing in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
A search was conducted in the PubMed/Medline database and Google Scholar to identify studies published from 2000 to 2019 covering children using key search terms. In the initial stages, titles, abstracts and, if needed, full articles were screened for eligibility. In the final stage, all included articles were reassessed and read, and relevant data were extracted.
Out of 600 initial articles, a total of 77 were included in this review, of which 74 were cross-sectional, 2 were longitudinal and one was a case-control study. The studies included a total of 94,491 participants in 14 countries across the MENA region. A majority used the World Health Organization scoring system to assess dental caries. The caries prevalence ranged between 17.2% and 88.8%, early childhood caries between 3% and 57% and decayed missing filled teeth (dmft) varied between 0.6 and 8.5 across the various age groups. Increased age, low maternal education, low overall socioeconomic status, decreased frequency of tooth brushing, low parental involvement, poor oral habits, infant feeding practices and sugar consumption were among the most prevalent determinants for increased risk of caries in the reviewed studies.
Dental caries was found to be high among children in many of the studies published from MENA. The key determinants of dental caries were found to include factors related to child characteristics, family background, oral hygiene and infant feeding and eating habits. The high dental caries prevalence emphasises the need to address the prevailing modifiable sociobehavioural and socioeconomic determinants by translating them into effective oral health prevention policies and programmes.
龋齿风险因素不仅强调生物学、饮食和口腔习惯，还包括更广泛的社会决定因素，如社会经济因素和卫生服务的利用。目的是综述居住在中东和北非（MENA）地区的儿童的社会行为/文化和社会经济决定因素对龋齿的影响。
在 PubMed/Medline 数据库和 Google Scholar 中进行了搜索，以确定 2000 年至 2019 年期间发表的针对儿童的研究，使用了关键搜索词。在初始阶段，筛选了标题、摘要，如有必要，还筛选了全文，以确定是否符合入选标准。在最后阶段，重新评估和阅读了所有纳入的文章，并提取了相关数据。
在最初的 600 篇文章中，共有 77 篇被纳入本综述，其中 74 篇为横断面研究，2 篇为纵向研究，1 篇为病例对照研究。这些研究共纳入了来自 MENA 地区 14 个国家的 94491 名参与者。大多数研究使用世界卫生组织评分系统评估龋齿。龋齿患病率在 17.2%至 88.8%之间，幼儿龋齿患病率在 3%至 57%之间，各年龄段的失牙、龋失补牙数（dmft）在 0.6 至 8.5 之间。在被综述的研究中，年龄较大、母亲教育程度较低、整体社会经济地位较低、刷牙频率较低、父母参与度较低、不良口腔习惯、喂养和饮食习惯较差等是导致龋齿风险增加的最常见决定因素。
许多发表于 MENA 的研究都发现儿童龋齿患病率较高。龋齿的主要决定因素包括与儿童特征、家庭背景、口腔卫生以及婴幼儿喂养和饮食习惯相关的因素。高龋齿患病率强调需要将这些普遍存在的可改变的社会行为和社会经济决定因素转化为有效的口腔健康预防政策和方案，以加以解决。
