Abstract

PULIDO-ROZO, Miriam; GONZALEZ-MARTINEZ, Farith  and  RIVAS-MUNOZ, Fabio. Prevalence of periodontal disease and oral hygiene indicators in high school students from Cartagena, Colombia. Rev. salud pública [online]. 2011, vol.13, n.5, pp.844-852. ISSN 0124-0064.

Objective Determining the prevalence of periodontal disease, treatment needs and associated factors in students from the John F. Kennedy School in Cartagena. Methods This was a cross-sectional study of 392 students selected by proportional random sampling stratified to the size of each course, considering a population framework of 902 subjects. The Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPITN) was measured as well as the Green & Vermillon oral hygiene index. A univariate analysis was made of percentages and bivariate analysis using odds ratios (OR) and 95 % confidence intervals (95 %CI). Results All participants presented at least one disease indicator, the presence of calculus being most frequent (45.1 %). Regarding the oral hygiene index, 77.7 % of the participants had high bacterial plaque indices. The bivariate analysis revealed an association between oral hygiene (OR=2.20; 1.27-3.81 95 %CI) and socioeconomic level (OR=0.44; 0.24-0.80 95 %CI). Multivariate analysis led to a model being obtained in which gender, socioeconomic level and state of hygiene explained periodontal disease severity and treatment needs. Conclusions Periodontal disease load was extremely high, although most events were found to involve early stages, thereby allowing successful intervention to avoid disease progressing to advanced stages.

Keywords : Periodontal disease; oral hygiene; periodontal index.

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