Prevalence of Malocclusion among 6 to 10 Year old Nalgonda School Children

Background: To evaluate the prevalence of malocclusion among 6 to 10 year old children of Nalgonda District.

Materials & methods: A total of 3000 children were examined, out of which 2135 children (1009 boys and 1126 girls) who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included. The selected sample was examined for Class I, Class II, Class III molar relationship, lower anterior crowding, cross bite (anterior and posterior), open bite, and pseudo class III [edge to edge bite] discrepancies after obtaining the written consent from the concerned school authorities. The collected data was tabulated and statistically analysed using chi-square test.

Results: Among the selected sample, 648 (30.35%) children had minor tooth alignment discrepancies. Angle's Class I molar relation with and without minor discrepancies was observed in 78.6%, Class II in 13.9%, Class III in 7.8% of the subjects surveyed. Lower anterior crowding in 11.8%, anterior cross bite in 4.5%, posterior cross bite in 3.75%, openbite in 3% and Pseudo class III [edge to edge] in 5.97% was noticed among the studied population. There was no statistical significant difference observed gender wise.

Conclusion: In the current study, 52% of the studied population had malocclusion with a higher prevalence of Angle's Class I molar relation with lower anterior crowding. How to cite this article: Reddy ER, Manjula M, Sreelakshmi N, Rani ST, Aduri R, Patil BD. Prevalence of Malocclusion among 6 to 10 Year old Nalgonda School Children. J Int Oral Health 2013; 5(6):49-54 .