OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence of Traumatic Dental Injuries of permanent anterior teeth amongst adolescents in secondary schools aged 11-13 years
METHODS: A cross-sectional study involving 160 adolescents from four secondary schools in Ibadan North Local Government Area of Oyo state.
A 16 item semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaire on knowledge, attitude and practice about traumatic dental injuries to permanent anterior teeth was administered to the participants.
Oral examination to establish the presence or absence of traumatic dental injuries was carried out by two examiners. Frequencies and percentages of relevant variables were reported. Chi-square test was used to test associations between categorical variables at 5.0% level of significance.
RESULTS: The mean age of participants was 11.73±0.733, majority were males (51.3%).
The majority 111(69.4%) attended public schools 49(30.6%) attended private schools
43(26.9%) of the study participants had traumatic dental injury and the majority 26 (68.4%) had injuries involving the upper anterior teeth
Upper right central incisors were the most affected 13(30.2%) which was followed by the Upper left central incisors 11(25.5%), trauma involving both upper centrals 3(6.9%), the upper right lateral incisors 5(11.6%) and upper left lateral incisors 2 (4.6%).
The lower anterior teeth were seldom affected by traumatic dental injuries.
Males had more traumatic dental injuries (28.0%) than females (25.6%) (P>0.05).
Enamel fracture was found to be the leading dental injury among both the males and females.
Falls were the largest cause of dental injuries for both males (21.7%) and females (33.3%), but males had a considerable amount of injuries due to collisions (17.4%) and sports (8.7%).
2.4% of respondents with traumatic dental injuries had sought treatment for the injuries sustained.
CONCLUSION: The prevalence of traumatic dental injuries have been found to be relatively high and knowledge of treatment modalities is relatively low.
KEYWORDS: Anterior teeth, trauma, Adolescents