Author:

• Silvia Cypriano - Cypriano S - Programa de Pós-Graduação em Odontologia, área de Cariologia, nível Doutorado, da Faculdade de Odontologia de Piracicaba da Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Caixa postal n. 52, 13414-903, Piracicaba, SP, Brasil. silviacypriano@hotmail.com - <silviacypriano@hotmail.com>

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Abstract:

Many studies have shown that worse levels of oral health were more frequently related to lower socioeconomic status, so this cross-sectional and exploratory study investigated the association between caries experience and socioeconomic factors, dental attendance, perception and habits among 266 12-year-old schoolchildren living in a low dental caries prevalence community in 2003. It was used the World Health Organization dental caries diagnosis methodology, in addition to the application of socioeconomic and behavioral questionnaires. To identify the factors associated to dental caries experience, multivariate logistic regression was used. The dependent variable was dichotomized into DMFT=0 and DMFT>0. Considering the limitations of a cross-sectional study, disliking the appearance of the teeth, seeking dental attendance because of pain, studying at a state school and the responsible for the family being a manual worker were independently associated with dental caries experience. Even in a municipality with low caries prevalence, socioeconomic condition, dental attendance and self-perception were important factors in the occurrence of dental caries among schoolchildren, and it is recommended that many factors inside the biopsychosocial context of multifactorial dental caries should be investigated.
KEY WORDS: Dental caries; DMF Index; Oral health; Socioeconomic factors

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