Prevalence of developmental oral anomalies among school children in Port Harcourt: a cross-sectional study

The development of the mouth, face, teeth and related structures is a highly complex process; genetic and/or environmental disturbances during this period can lead to various developmental anomalies, which may present as variation in number, colour, shape or size of the affected structures. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of developmental anomalies among school children in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

This was a cross-sectional study carried out within Port Harcourt metropolis, Obio-Akpor local government area of Rivers state. A total of 5 schools (3 primary schools and 2 secondary schools) were selected by multistage sampling method. An interviewer administered questionnaire was used to elicit information, following which oral screening/examination was performed for all the study participants. Data collected were entered into a spreadsheet and analyzed using the SPSS package, version 27 (IBM SPSS, Chicago, USA).

A total of 1802 children; 790 (43.9%) males and 1012 (56.1%) females participated in this study and had a mean age of 10.01 ± 3.67 years. Developmental anomalies of the teeth, tongue and jaws were identified in 181 individuals (10.0% of the study population). A total of 199 anomalies were recorded (11.04%), as some individuals presented with more than one anomaly. Hypoplasia was the most frequent anomaly, with a prevalence of 39% among children aged 6-12years and 26% among children aged ≥ 13years; and this difference was significant (p = 0.002). Microdontia (p = 0.002) and exostoses(p = 0.004) similarly showed statistically significant differences across the age groups. Fluorosis (37%) and macrodontia (26%) were also more among children aged 6-12 years. The distribution of these anomalies across gender and different socioeconomic status showed no statistical significance.

The most common anomaly was hypoplasia followed by fluorosis while macrognathia and enamel pearl ranked the lowest. However, overall prevalence of developmental anomalies in this study is low compared to other studies.