Prevalence of anterior open bite and overjet preschoolers in the city of Recife (PE, Brazil)

The objective of this work was to verify the prevalence of malocclusions (anterior open bite, overjet) and its association with age, gender and type of school with a sample of 2,651 preschool children in the city of Recife, PE, Brazil. The children were seated in school chairs in the room of the day care/school for the clinical exam, children aging two years or less were assisted in the system knee-knee, through natural and artificial illumination. The dental protrusion was verified when the overjet was larger than 3 mm through periodontal probe in millimeters. The presence of anterior open bite was detected when there was no contact with the anterior teeth and the posterior ones stayed in occlusion. t was also registered in clinical record a combination of the two malocclusions types, in other words, open bite and of dental protrusion. The data were analyzed at Qui-square and the association among the events was the odds ratio. The prevalence of protrusion was 66.1% and previous open bite 19.8%. There was association among this malocclusions, age and type of school, however there was not significant statistical association between malocclusion and gender. It was concluded that the prevalence of malocclusion in preschoolers was high and it was associated to the age and school type.