Abstract :
Background: Oral hygiene is one of etiologies which determine the morbidity due to oral conditions
like periodontitis, dental caries, etc. It might be often neglected in a district with low literacy rate like
the one in which this study was conducted.
Aims: To assess oral hygiene status and its socio-demographic determinants among children and
adolescents below 19 yrs in a large school of a district.
Methods: It was a cross sectional study conducted by Department of Community Medicine and
Department of Dentistry of a Govt. Medical College in a large purposively selected school. All the
school children from classes first to twelfth were enrolled and screened during the year 2012-13.
Clinical data were collected on self-designed, pre-tested and semi-structured schedules by conducting
dental examinations by a dentist. The socio-demographic data of the students were collected from
their school records with the help of respective teachers. Proportions, chi square test, with and
without Yate’s correction, and t test were used as statistical tools for the analysis.
Keyword :
Adolescents, Mewat, Oral hygiene, Oral hygiene index-simplified, School.