Correlation between Five Prevalent Oral Conditions among Chinese Adolescents

Objectives: To explore the aggregation and correlation of five prevalent oral diseases or conditions among Chinese adolescents: dental caries, gingival bleeding, calculus, periodontal pocket and periodontal attachment loss.
Methods: Data for 15-year-olds participated in the 4^th National Oral Health Survey of China were used, which was implemented from 2015 to 2018. All participants were clinically examined, including five major oral diseases or conditions, that is, dental caries, gingival bleeding, calculus, periodontal pocket and periodontal attachment loss. The diagnostic criteria were adopted according to the WHO recommendation. After adjusting for mixed factors such as gender, urban and rural areas, statistical analysis was made on the data. OR matrix were used to explain the strength of association between each two conditions.
Results: A total of 815,584 teeth of 29,128 15-year-old children were examined. Among all the teeth examined, 3.47% detected caries, 20.62% detected gingival bleeding, 22.38% detected dental calculus, 0.69% detected periodontal pockets, and 0.05% detected periodontal attachment loss. There was a extremely strong correlation between calculus and periodontal attachment loss(OR=19.36(12.14-27.76)) and between calculus and gingival bleeding(OR=13.76(13.50-14.04)). There was a strong correlation between gingival bleeding and periodontal pockets (OR=8.68(7.84-9.61)), between calculus and periodontal pockets(OR=3.67(3.40-3.96)), between gingival bleeding and attachment loss(OR=4.16(2.76-6.27)). There was a moderate correlation between dental caries and gingival bleeding(OR=1.89(1.81-1.96)), between dental caries and periodontal pockets(OR=2.05(1.80-2.34)). There were no significant correlation between dental caries and calculus, between dental caries and attachment loss.
Conclusions: Dental problems are highly aggregated. A tooth often suffers from several diseases or conditions. The degree of correlation between calculus and attachment loss is the strongest, while there was no correlation between dental caries and calculus or loss of attachment.