Dental caries among Nigeria Primary School children in Ugbowo, Benin-City

HATTON COMPETITION (SENIOR CATEGORY: CLINICAL) Objective: To determine the carious status and Body mass index (BMI) of primary school children from both public and private schools in Ugbowo, Benin City. Materials and Methods: Two hundred and ten primary school children from both private and public schools were examined for dental caries during the Association of Resident Doctors, University of Benin Teaching Hospital School Health programme in December 2010, using the WHO criteria. The height and the weight of the children were also measured in order to calculate the BMI. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 17.0. Results: Out of the participants, 33 (15.7%) of the children had dental caries with a mean DMFT of 0.25 ± 0.64. The mean DMFT was higher amongst males (0.26) than females (0.23) and also higher in private schools (0.32) than in public schools (0.19). The mean BMI was higher among the private schoolchildren than the public schoolchildren. Conclusion: Dental caries experience among primary schoolchildren in Ugbowo is comparable to that reported in other Nigerian Pediatric population. Success-oriented oral health promotion should take cognisance of differential prevalence of dental caries in terms of gender and type of school recorded in this study.