Prevalence and Severity of Dental Erosion among Preschool Children in Peshawar

Objective: To analyze the impact of dental erosion among preschool children in Peshawar. Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted in Peshawar, KPK Pakistan over a period of 8 months from 1st December 2019 – 3rd July 2020. Study Design: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted among preschool children in private schools of Hayatabad Peshawar on 1021 children with age range of 3-5 years. Parents of the invited children were asked to complete a questionnaire and consent form at home, distributed forehand. Examination was done according to Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE) criteria. Clinical examination of the children was performed in their classrooms using disposable dental mirror and a ball-ended WHO CPITIN probe on all the surfaces of the deciduous teeth. Status of the dental erosion of the entire sextant was represented by the tooth surface with the highest noted BEWE score in that sextant. The association of erosive tooth wear with children’s socioeconomic status, dental and oral hygiene habits was calculated using multiple logistic regression. Results: Total of 1021 preschool children assessed in this study revealed prevalence of dental erosion (BEWE Score>0) to be 12.2%. Among these 92(9.01%) children had initial tooth wear,27(2.6%) had distinct tooth loss, and 6(0.58%) showed severe tooth loss. Prevalence of erosive tooth wear was recorded to be 1.9%, 4.8% and 27.1% among 3, 4 and 5-year-old children respectively. Conclusion: Prevalence of dental erosion among preschool children in Peshawar is low. However, increasing age, parental education as well as poor dietary and oral hygiene habits were the factors deemed to contribute towards increasing prevalence.