Rai Tariq Masood, Khawaja Rashid Hassan, Aamir Shahzad, Shahzeb Patoli.
Assessing the Frequency of Dental Pain and its Associated Factors in 11-14 years Old Children.
Ann Abbasi Shaheed Hosp Karachi Med Dent Coll Jan ;21(1):37-41.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the frequency, characteristics and other factors affecting dental pain in 11-14 years old school children in Islamabad, Pakistan. Methods: A cross sectional survey was carried out in May 2015 to assess the frequency of dental pain in 11-14 years old school children attending government and private schools in Islamabad, Pakistan. Total samples consisted of 526 school children from 9 randomly selected government and 9 from private schools. Two hundred and seventy three children from government schools and 253 children from private schools participated in the study. Response rate was 83.65%. A standardised questionnaire comprised of 15 questions related to demographics and pain experience was completed by the children. Results: The frequency of dental pain in 11-14 years old school children was 29.1% in Islamabad, Pakistan. The frequency of dental pain in males was 30.2% and in females it was 27.6%. In this study, dental pain in the last six months was not significantly associated with gender in children (p=0.618). Similarly dental pain was not statistically significantly associated with the type of school in which the child was studying (p=0.302). However dental pain was significantly related to occupation of father (p=0.027). The children, whose fathers had jobs as labourers, had a higher frequency of dental pain than fathers with white-collar jobs. Almost 36.7% of the children reporting dental pain described the intensity of pain as discomforting and 28.1% of children had mild pain. The pain did not radiate to the surrounding area in 36.7% of the children. The pain radiated to surrounding area to mild and moderate extent in 41.4% and 13.3% of children respectively. It was found that eating from the side of mouth with dental pain had no effect on the severity of pain in 15.6% of children. Almost 13.3% of children claimed that eating made the pain moderately more severe. Conclusion: Overall the frequency of dental pain in children was 29%. Dental pain was not associated with gender of the school child. Efforts should be directed to determine the cause of dental pain in school children. Prevention of dental pain can be done by promoting oral health in children to reduce the impact of dental pain on quality of life.

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