JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Oral diseases including Early childhood caries (ECC) are among the most prevalent conditions affecting preschool children aged 1 to 5 years. The consequences of oral diseases are pronounced in developing countries where treatment cost is high and access to dental care is limited. Many studies were conducted in Africa on the prevalence and risk factors of oral diseases. However, comparisons across countries have been complicated by using different and/ or unstandardized tools for clinical examination and risk assessment and the lack of unified protocols and calibrated examiners.

Objective:

To determine the oral health status and practices, dietary intake and anthropometric measurements of preschool children in several African countries.

Methods:

A cross-sectional study will be conducted in several African countries using a standardized questionnaire and clinical examination for data collection from healthy preschool children in kindergartens and primary health care facilities. Clinical examination will assess ECC (measured by dmft using the World Health Organization, WHO, criteria), erosion (using the Basic Erosive Wear Examination Index), developmental defects of enamel (using the European Association of Paediatric Dentistry criteria), dental fluorosis (using Dean’s index), and oral hygiene status (using the Oral Hygiene Index Simplified). Oral hygiene habits and dental visits will be assessed using the WHO child questionnaire and dietary intake will be assessed using the Food and Agriculture Organization method for low resource settings). Anthropometric measurements will be obtained following the International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry standard protocol and the children’s nutritional status will be assessed following the WHO Child Growth Standards. To calibrate examiners, educational resources and electronic forms will be used to reach inter and/ or intra-examiner reliability of Kappa≥ 0.6. Descriptive analysis will determine the prevalence of clinical conditions by age and sex. Bivariate analysis and multi-variable regression will assess associations between the clinical conditions and sociodemographic factors, and oral health behaviors.

Results:

Data collection will begin in the first half of 2022 to be completed within the same year. The first stage will include three countries: Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa and collaborators from other African countries will join afterwards.

Conclusions:

This study will lay down the foundations for using validated tools to collect data on oral health of young children in Africa, allowing researchers from different countries across Africa to be calibrated and collect standardized data on ECC and other oral conditions. This will facilitate comparisons and analysis of risk factors that might be unique to the African continent. The results will provide baseline data on the prevalence of oral diseases and enable planning to address the treatment needs of young African children in addition to design programs to prevent oral diseases in the African continent.