Assessment of Oral Hygiene Status by Using Disclosing Agents to Schoolchildren from Rural Areas

Abstract

Poor oral hygiene, in terms of gingival bleeding and increasing accumulation of plaque and calculus with increasing age, have been reported among school-aged children, in both developed- and developing countries, causing unsatisfactory oral health among children. The aim of this study was to determine oral hygiene status by calculating Oral Hygiene Index -Simplified (OHI-S), using disclosing agents, and to examine whether socio-economic and behavioral correlates of oral hygiene status, in school children from rural areas, N-W Romania. For the highlighting of the bacterial plaque were used two tone dental plaque disclosing agent, which contains Erythrosine and Brilliant Blue FCF. The OHI-S index is divided according to its values in several categories as follows: very good hygiene = OHI-S Index between 0 and 1; good hygiene = OHI-S Index between 1.1 and 2; unsatisfactory hygiene = OHI-S Index between 2.1 and 3; poor hygiene = Index OHI-S between 3.1 and 6. The average value of the OHI-S index in children in rural areas of N-W Romania was 1.78, a higher value than most of the values identified in the bibliographical references. Using disclosing agents may improve oral health status in schoolchildren, by increasing the awareness of their personal oral hygiene condition.

Dental Caries in the First Permanent Molar during the Mixed Dentition Stage

“…Ebrahimi et al reported that among the 700 pediatric subjects aged seven to nine years from Mashhad, Iran, only 2.4% needed pulp treatment (32), which indicated a much lower prevalence of caries with pulp involvement than in the current study. The results of a research conducted in two areas (rural and urban) in North-Western Romania, concerning caries pathology of the FPM among 9-12-year-old subjects, showed that 30.95% of children from the urban area and 20.41% of those from the rural community had caries with pulp involvement (33). This is an interesting result, because a lower prevalence of caries with pulp involvement would have been expected in urban children, as compared to their rural counterparts, since the former had a better access to oral health services than the latter.…”