Dental Health: Current ResearchISSN: 2470-0886

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Oral health status and treatment needs among 3-5 year old children attending Anganwadi centers of Belagavi city: A cross-sectional study


Vaibhav Kumar

KLE University, India

: Dent Health Curr Res

Abstract


Background: Child oral health has tremendous potential to be an indicator of health inequalities, more pronounced during the preschool periods. Reducing these inequalities benefit wider society by potentially freeing up scarce health system resources. The Government of India has initiated a scheme known as Integrated Child Developmental Scheme (ICDS). Anganwadis form a nested niche for assessing preschool children coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Hence these Anganwadi centers constitute as a focal-point which can be easily targeted and the attendees can be assessed, acted upon and assisted to improve their oral health and hygiene practices. Aim: To assess the oral health status and treatment needs among 3-5 year old children attending Anganwadi centers of Belagavi city. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1200 preschool children attending the Anganwadi centres of Belagavi. Fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria, Type III examination was done to assess the oral health status and treatment needs on the basis of WHO 2013 oral health assessment form (for children). Data was collected and subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS software. Results: Majority of the subjects (76.1%) were affected by dental caries followed by gingival bleeding (30.4%). The mean dmft of the study subjects was 3.01±1.38, 3.50±1.84 and 3.60 ±1.72 for the age groups of 3 years, 4 years and 5 years respectively. Among the 1200 subjects, 76.8% were in need of prompt treatment. Conclusion:These reports indeed signal the need for prompt action to be meted out for the curtailment of the prevalent oral maladies, and age-specific targeted and focused remedies are indeed the need of the hour.

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