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Awareness and concern about malocclusion among 12-15 year-old children in Moshi, Tanzania
D S Rwakatema1, P M Ng'ang'a, A M Kemoli
1Department of Dentistry, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College, Tumaini University, P.O. Box 3010, Moshi, Tanzania.
Objective:
To assess awareness and concern about malocclusion in 12-15 year-olds in Moshi, Tanzania.
Design:
A cross-sectional study.
Setting:
Moshi Municipality in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania.
Subjects:
Two hundred and ninety eight randomly selected Public primary school children aged 12-15 years (158 males and 140 females).
Results:
About 56% of the respondents thought their teeth were properly aligned. However only 29.1% of the respondents reported being dissatisfied with the way their teeth appeared in their mouth. About 25% of the respondents found their teeth to have been worse than most of their age-mates. Children who reported to have been teased due to their malocclusion comprised 25.8%. Those who thought it was unpleasant to stay with malaligned teeth constituted 55.7% of the respondents. Subjective orthodontic treatment need was reported by 69.1% of the sample. Majority of the children (75%) were ready to accept orthodontic treatment. There were significant correlations between factors of awareness and those of concern about malocclusion among the subjects.
Conclusions:
In spite of very little orthodontic treatment exposure in this population, awareness and concern about malocclusion was reported by a significant proportion of the children. These findings form a baseline line for future studies on the trends of awareness and concern towards malocclusion in this population. They will also be useful in the planning of orthodontic services in Tanzania.
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