Oral Health Status of Children in a Community in Northeastern Brazil

Objective: To assess the oral health status of public school students of Sao Francisco do Conde, Bahia. Material and Methods: Cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical-comparative study with 350 children aged 7-12 years of both sexes. Oral health was analyzed using indicators recommended by WHO: soft tissue condition, DMFT, dmft, CPI, dental fluorosis, and DAI, and analysis of dental care, salivary examinations, chronology of eruption of permanent teeth, frequency of tooth brushing and visits to the dentist. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and statistical tests -t-Student,X-2, Fisher exact test, ANOVA, Tamhane and F Levene. Results: dmft and DMFT values of 1.45 and 0.53 were found, respectively. Among black (49.4%) and brown students (49.1%), 72.5 % had mixed dentition, 0.3% deciduous, and expected chronology of eruption of permanent teeth in 70.6 %, 56.3 % reported experiencing caries, 38.3% of children had fluorosis, 96.9% of individuals with normal saliva buffer capacity, while 23.2% had reduced salivary flow. CPI in children aged 12 years found that 79 % had healthy periodontium, no bleeding or presence of calculus. In relation to DAI, 21.1 % of children had normal or slightly altered occlusion and 71.5 % had some degree of malocclusion. Only 14.6 % of the sample reported not having had any contact with dentist and 38.6 % reported brushing their teeth three times a day or more. Conclusion: The oral health pattern of schoolchildren is satisfactory, requiring particular care with occlusion. The effectiveness of the results of this epidemiological survey allowed the adequacy of public policy actions on oral health in the municipality in which orthodontics service in the public network will be established.