Evaluation of risk factor of early childhood caries in preschool children

Early childhood caries (ECC) has gained popularity due to increased prevalence rate (54%) worldwide. The main cause is believed to be improper feeding habits even though it is multi-factorial. Aim: To evaluate if frequent carbohydrate snacking in between meals and poor oral hygiene is equally contributing to aetiology of ECC in 3-6 year old children attending preschools in Sullia, Karnataka. Methods: In this questionnaire study, two sets of questionnaire were distributed, one to rule out children with history of consumption of milk based food and other to collect data on consumption of carbohydrate food frequency & timing of feeding and their oral hygiene. Children without history of consumption of milk based food was taken as sample population (266). Clinical examination was carried out to categorize children into two groups; case (133 children with ECC) and control (133 children without ECC). Data were collected and statistically analyzed. Result: It showed that, children who snacks in between meals showed risk of having ECC 8 times more than that of children who snacks with meals; The children who brushes once daily showed risk of having ECC 3.4 times more than that of children who brushes twice daily. The correlation between the consumption of carbohydrate food without the use of milk based food and their oral hygiene habit with ECC were found to be extremely statistically significant at P value < 0.0001 level. Conclusion: Increased frequency of highly fermentable carbohydrate was equally contributing to ECC in pre-schoolers of 3-6 years in a group of India population.