The Epidemiologic Survey of Traumatic Deciduous Teeth in Taiwan

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to focus on the survey of the prevalence rate of dental trauma for Taiwanese children aged below six years. A total sample of 4,620 children was collected by stratified cluster sample design, and Probability Proportion to Size. The sample examined was 4,037 children and the completion rate was 87.38%. Training for the oral examination was provided to improve the coordination and reliability of the examiners to enhance consistency. A database was designed by Microsoft Access and data analyzed by statistics software SAS and JMP after data entry. Comparison between categorical variables was performed by using Pearson's chi-square test and between numerical variables by using t-test analysis. The prevalence rate of dental trauma to deciduous teeth for the 0-6 year-ld children was 0.94%, boys had 1.12% and girls 0.68% prevalence rate of dental trauma. There was no significant difference between boys and girls in dental trauma prevalence. The prevalence rate of dental trauma by age showed that the highest peak occurred at 3 years old (1.19%), followed by 4 (0.95%) and then 5 year-old (0.92%) children. In our study, upper central incisors occupied 0.99% prevalence of dental trauma among primary dentition. Upper lateral incisors and lower central incisors only occupied a very small prevalence rate, less than 0.05%. A low prevalence rate of dental trauma occurred to the children aged below 6 years in Taiwan, which may be caused by different study and sampling method, different definition of dental trauma, and different care attitude of parents to children. Considering the high frequency of dental trauma in the 3-5 year-old children, the safety of kindergartens and the prevention of dental trauma to deciduous teeth should be considered.