Ninette Banday, Leon Dogon I L, Farah Saeed.
Trend of Caries Experience in Children Registered with the Aga Khan School Health Care Centers in Karachi, Pakistan.
J Pak Dent Assoc Jan ;10(4):193-8.

OBJECTIVE: To report the prevalence of dental caries among the 6-8 year olds in 1993 and in the 8-10 year old children in 1995 for the children registered with The Aga Khan School Health Centers in Karachi, Pakistan. It also reports the relationship between the prevalence of dental caries in the study population by age, sex and location. SUBJECTS & METHODS: Stratified cluster random sampling of 6-8 years old in 1993 and the same group assessed in 1995 at the age of 8-10 years. dfs and dft for deciduous and DMFT & DMFS for the permanent teeth were scored based on the WHO Diagnostic Criteria. Data was collected on the WHO prescribed form. Calibration was done using the Kappa Index. RESULTS: The mean dfs for 360 children 6-8 years old examined in 1993 was 4.91(+ 6.76) while the mean dft was 2.32 (+ 2.8). The mean dfs score for the 323 children in the 1995 follow-up study, the study population now 8-10 years old was 3.79 (+ 5.21) and the mean dft was 1.9 (+ 2.3). The paired t-test analysis to compare the scores between 1993 and 1995 showed that the decrease was significant (p < .001). The DMFS and DMFT scores increased significantly from 1993 to 1995. For 1993. the mean score for DMFS was 0.18 (+ 0.71) and the mean DMFT was 0.16 (+ 0.6) while for 1995 the mean DMFS score was 0.41 (+ 0.1) and DMFT was 0.37 (+ 0.82). The paired t-test analysis showed this increase to be significant (p < .001). CONCLUSION: From this study it is evident that the dental services currently provided appear inadequate to meet the needs of the children population in Karachi, given that over 90% of the all caries experience was found consisted of untreated decay. The results suggest an urgent change in the Dental Public Health sectors towards comprehensive preventive oriented oral health care programs.

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