Demands and Dental Treatment Needs among Children Attending the Clinic of Pedodontics, College of dentistry – Babylon University.

: Introduction: Demands and dental treatment needs were assessed among Children Attending the Clinic of Pedodontics, College of


Results:
The study showed that toothache 48.8% formed the most frequent demands, followed by dental trauma, orthodontics problems, and then preventive measures.Concerning treatment needs; 98.5% of children needed dental treatment because of dental caries, while 97.8 of children needed periodontal treatment.In addition, 20.8% of children needed treatment because of traumatic dental injuries, as well as 18.0% of children needed orthodontics treatment, while only 6.2% of children

INTRODUCTION:
The term need is defined as the quantity of dental treatment, which in the opinion of an expert, should be available over a period for people to be certified dentally healthy [1].In underdeveloped countries, dental care demand might be only for pain relief [2].Most studies of need and demand show that the former is larger than the latter [3,4,5,6,7].This is due to many reasons includes: Availability of treatment, acceptability of treatment and accessibility of treatment [6,7].Evaluating needs and demands for treatment in the population is probably a difficult task to achieve [6].Many factors not directly related to the actual disease for which treatment can be offered will interfere, such as cost, culture, equipment, manpower and treatment prognosis [7].Consequently, the utilization of dental care depends on the interaction between needs and demands for treatment and the available resources [8].Most of epidemiological and clinical studies in our society were directed to the estimation of the prevalence and severity of oral problems while little data or information are available at present on the two parameters; dental needs and demands [ 9,10,11].The aim of this present study was to investigate dental demands and needs of group of children attending clinic of pedodontics in the College of Dentistry, Babylon University.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:
The sample size is of consisted of 400 child (200 males and 200 females) was taken randomly from children attending to the pedodontic clinic/ College of Dentistry-Babylon University for the first time during the period from 1 march 2013 until 1 April 2013.The ages of those children were range from 5-15 years.Parents consent were taken at the time of examination.The chief complaint according to the patient's own words were recorded first followed by clinical examination.Gingival, plague and calculus conditions were assessed by the use of gingival, plague and calculus components of the periodontal diseases index of Ramfjord in 1959 [12].Dental caries and treatment needs were recorded according to WHO, 1987 [13].Traumatic dental injuries were assessed by the use of Garcia-Godoy classification in 1981 [14] (1) shows the distribution of the children by age and gender in which the numbers of males (13.0 %) were higher than females (10.5 %) at age group (5-8 years), while the numbers of females (18.5 %) were higher than males (16.0 %) at age group (9-12 years).Furthermore, the numbers of children at age group (13-15 years) were equal (21.0%).Table (3) shows the prevalence of dental caries, traumatic dental injuries and gingival disease.The percentages of children suffering from dental caries and gingival inflammation were (98.5 %)(97.8%) respectively while (20.8 %) of children were suffered from traumatic dental injuries.Males (25.0 %) were more affected by dental trauma than females (16.5 %).The mean of caries experience of primary and permanent teeth were illustrated in table (4) in which the decayed fraction formed the major part of DMF and dmf indices.It was founded that caries experiences of both primary teeth surfaces (dmfs) and permanent teeth surfaces (DMFS) were higher in females than males.The mean dmfs decrease with age while mean DMFS increase with age due to mix dentition stage and time exfoliation.The mean number of traumatic dental injures was higher in males than females, while the mean plague index, gingival index and calculus index were nearly the same in both; females and males.

DISCUSSION:
The present study showed that the number of boys and girls attended to the dental clinic was equal.This is in disagreement with the results of other studies in which the number of boys were slightly higher than girls [3,15,16].On one hand, data of this study showed that toothache was the most frequent dental demands.This findings supported by other studies which stated that people seeking treatment in an emergency dental problems only [2,3,4,5,6].On the other hand, the low percentage (3.5%) of children attended for checking reflect the low dental knowledge of the children and their parents.Furthermore, the percentage of children attending for orthodontic treatments (18.2%) reveal that, the parents were concerned about the dental appearance and esthetic of their children.These findings was lower than the result of other study [22].
Data of this study shows that a high percentage of children 97.8% suffered from gingival inflammation and they need periodontal treatment ( oral hygiene instruction and prophylaxis), this may be due to the painless nature of this disease which make it largely responsible for a lack of of demands [3,4], beside that the percentage of children suffering from mild gingivitis 32.2% and moderate gingivitis 50.6% were higher than children with severe gingivitis 17.1%.This could be explained by; gingivitis is the disease of children and its severity increase with age [4].Children with traumatized teeth formed 20.8% and this was higher than many studies [18,19] but it lower than other studies [20,21].Males demanded treatments for traumatized teeth more than females, this could be attributed to the fact that; males tend to be more active and participate in outdoor activities while females tend to be more mature in their behavior more stable and calmness than males.
The results also shows the low percentage of caries free children 1.5% ,while 98.5% of children suffered from dental caries, from them 48.8% seeking dental treatment due to toothache.Those children needed filling, pulp care, immediate care, and extraction.These findings explained by the fact that children and their parents were unaware of their actual dental status and did not regard periodic check up as a routine necessity for the maintenance of their oral health [4].

CONCLUSION:
There is a far distance between normative needs and demands for treatment.So improvement of dental health attitudes and perception of parents and children toward dentistry is very essential which may increase the demand for treatment and encourage parents to attend dental clinic with their children regularly.It should therefore be the aspiration of appropriate government ministry and health care providers to attempt converting normative needs into demand for care by raising the level of perceived need through attitude change, as well as increasing the rate at which perceived needs are converted into demands by decreasing barrier to access.
Demands and dental treatment needs were assessed among Children Attending the Clinic of Pedodontics, College of dentistry -Babylon University, for the first time.Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate dental demands and needs of group of children attending clinic of pedodontics in the College of Dentistry, Babylon University.Methodology: A descriptive clinical study was done for random sample of children.The sample consists of 400 child (200 males and 200 females).The ages of those children were range from 5-15 years.Children were examined in the peadodontic and Preventive Dentistry clinic /College of Dentistry / Babylon University during the period from 1 march 2013 until 1 April 2013.Data were analyzed through using descriptive statistical analysis, which include (Percentage arithmetic mean and standard deviation).

Figure ( 1 )
Figure (1): Percentage distribution of children according to malocclusion of teeth by gender.The distribution of children according to malocclusion of teeth by gender was illustrated by figure(1).Class 2 division 2 was the most frequent cause of malocclusion, while class III malocclusion was the least.

Figure ( 2 )
Figure (2): Distribution of children according to severity of gingival diseases by gender.Figure (2) shows the distribution of children according to the severity of gingival disease by gender.Most children were affected by moderate gingivitis (50.6

Figure ( 4 )
Figure (4): Dental demand of children examined according to gender.The distribution of children according to treatment need by gender illustrated in figure(4).Data showed that the most children had dental caries, they need two or

Figure ( 4 )
Figure (4): Dental demand of children examined according to gender.The distribution of children according to treatment need by gender illustrated in figure(4).Data showed that the most children had dental caries, they need two or