Genny Durán Contreras¹*, Ana de la Hoz² and Paola Beltri Orta³

¹PhD Student, Pediatric Dentist, European University of Madrid, Spain
²Pediatric Dentist Teaching and Research Unit, Dentistry Faculty, European University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
³Medical Doctor and Dentist, Pediatric Dentist Teaching and Research Unit, Dentistry Faculty, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

*Corresponding Author: Genny Durán Contreras, PhD Student, Pediatric Dentist, European University of Madrid, Spain.

Received: September 20, 2022; Published: October 12, 2022

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined dental caries as a localized infectious process of multifactorial origin with high prevalence worldwide, but this prevalence depends on many factors, among which is the geographical origin specifically of children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of dental caries in a Spanish and immigrants pediatric population in an independent not-profit foundation in Madrid, Spain (Odontología Solidaria), using a descriptive, cross-sectional, prospective, and correlational design. The sample consisted of 68 children and adolescents between 3 and 15 years old, male, and female, who attended a Odontología Solidaria Foundation in Madrid, Spain. The inclusion criterion consisted of having attended the Odontología Solidaria Foundation in Madrid, Spain between the months of January and July of 2022. Self-administered questionnaire and dental clinical examination were performed to obtain information about oral dental caries and ethnic background. The data is recorded in individual files and input into a database developed in the SPSS program. Spearman's correlation was carried out with a level of statistical significance p: <0.05. The total sample, 97.05% showed caries with a higher prevalence in males, aged between 3 and 6 years with 50%, that is, that the highest prevalence was the ECC. Regarding caries indexes, the dmft/DMFT was higher in the age group of 10 to 15 years and dmf-t/DMF-T in the age group of 3 to 6 years due to the presence of ECC. Although it is descriptively shown that children born outside of Spain but who have migrated to this country have a higher prevalence of caries, the calculation of the correlation using Spearman’s statistical test showed an inverse, moderated between gender and the dmft/DMFT : likewise, between the dmf-t/DMF-T with the age group in a negative and significant way; that is, the older the child, the lower their dmf-t/DMF-T index, since the primary teeth exfoliate as age increases. The country of origin did not correlate with any of the variables evaluated. Conclusions: This study showed that the prevalence of caries was increased in the sample and mainly in children between 3 and 6 years old, which is where early childhood caries (ECC) were found, which is why these children constitute a problem of Public Health. Children and adolescents from America showed the highest value of dmf-t/DMF-T, meaning that they presented a higher proportion of early childhood caries (ECC), while the dmft/DMFT index had the highest average in immigrants from other countries.

Keywords: Caries; Prevalence; Geographical Origin; Age; Sex

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Citation

Citation: Genny Durán Contreras., et al. “Prevalence of Caries among Spanish Born and Immigrant Pediatric Population". Acta Scientific Dental Sciences 6.11 (2022): 38-45.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Genny Durán Contreras., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.