Abstract

RODRIGUEZ PEELM, Johanna C; RODRIGUES ALVES, Christiane; COPLE MAIA, Lucianne  and  BARBOSA DE ARAUJO CASTRO, Gloria Fernanda. Influence of sugar consumption, medicines uses and oral hygiene in the babies caries prevalence. Acta odontol. venez [online]. 2008, vol.46, n.2, pp.165-169. ISSN 0001-6365.

The prevalence of early childhood caries in children from 0-36 months and its relationship with sugar consumption, medicines uses and oral hygiene, has been study in this research. We used non direct documentation through patient records research from a baby clinic of Rio de Janeiro higher education institution. From a total of 1066 records, we selected 525 valid records and the results were listed and analyzed using Epi Info 6.04 software. We found an average age of 21.4 ± 8.3 month, where 53 % were male. Approximately 1/3 of the babies (35%) had low sugar consumption; moreover 81% of the babies were used to sweeten their food, especially with sucrose (94%). The frequently use of medicine were found in 29%, especially vitamins with a value of 74%; and a total of 84% did oral hygiene where 77% used tooth brush and 51% used past tooth. Caries were present in 38% of the babies, and an average dmf-t found was 3.208. We observed that the sugar consumption was directly related to the presence of dental carie (p<0.05 Chi-square test). We also found a proportional relationship between patient age and the presence of dental caries (p<0.05). There were not relationship between medicine uses and the presence of dental caries (p>0.05). We observed that the dental hygienic had a proportional inverse relationship to the presence of dental caries (p<0.05). We concluded that the medicine uses had not relationship with dental carie considering our patient records. However, sugar consumption and the dental hygienic habit play a fundamental role in the babies carie prevalence.

Keywords : Dental carie; medicines; dental hygienic habit; sugar; babies.