PREVALENCE OF NURSING CARIES AMONG URBAN AND RURAL CHILDREN IN BENGHAZI

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to determine, the prevalence of nursing caries, and the relation between severity of nursing caries and feeding pattern among children in urban and rural areas in Benghazi. A total of 1000 preschool children whosle ages ranged 2.5 and 5 years were included in the study. They were divided into an urban group which consisted of 700 preschool children and rural group which consisted of 300 preschool children. All the children were free from any systemic disease, and randomly selected from nurseries and polyclinics, they were submited to clinical dental examination for the presence of nursing caries.

A data collecting chart was filled for each child including demographic and socioconomic data. Questionnaire charts were given in arabic to the mothers to be filled regarding the feeding pattern of the infants in order to determine the relationship between feeding pattern and the severity of nursing caries, from dental examination the children with nursing caries were classified into (0) nursing caries negative (1) Mild (2) moderate (3) severe.

According to the information obtained from the quesennaire charts, the feeding patterns were classified into (o) non abusive (1) Mild abuse (2) Moderate abusive (3) and severely abusive, depending on the number of feeding per/day, duration of feeding