Prevalence of dental fluorosis among primary school children in Thamar– Yemen.
Abstract
Aims: To determine the prevalence and severity of dental fluorosis in relation to age and sex for primary school children, aged 6 12 years old in Thamar -Yemen. Material and methods: The study included 600 primary school children aged 6, 9 and 12 years old randomly selected (300 males, 300 females) in Thamar Yemen, who had lived since birth in moderate natural fluoride level (1.8 2.2 ppm) by the use of Dean index to assess dental fluorosis. Results: Showed that the prevalence of dental fluorosis was 19.83 % and 5.23 % within students and teeth respectively, ranging from very mild to moderate form of dental fluorosis with no significant sex difference for individuals at p 0.05 as total and significant difference between males and females for teeth as total at p 0.001, the percentage of severity had been found to be increasing with age. The community fluorosis index for Thamar Province was 0.4 %, which was regarded low. Conclusion: The prevalence of dental fluorosis had been increased with increasing age with no sex difference