Dental Caries Status and its Related Factors in Iran: A Meta-Analysis

Dental caries is a global health issue, which imposes a great deal on individuals and the community.

The main purpose of this study was to identify the dental caries status and/or DMFT/dmft data and its related factors in Iran.

The search performed in the online databases to identify all literature published up to Oct 2018. The random effects model was applied to pool analysis and verses. Funnel plots and Egger test used to examine publication bias. All analyses were carried out with R software version 3.2.1 and STATA (version 11.1).

69 studies selected as eligible for final analysis which all were in age range of fewer than 18 years old except 4; so, all results and analyzes were only calculated in this age group. The total rate of dental caries was 72.8% (95%CI, 69.2-76.4%) and the mean of dental caries was 2.33 (95% CI, 2.12–2.54) based on DMFT values and 3.86 (95% CI, 3.49–4.22) based on the dmft values. These rates were almost similar in both sexes. Also, these trend were higher in rural than urban regions. Subgroup analysis found a direct relationship between DMFT index and age; while, the reverse was true for relationship between dmft and age. The mean dental caries were higher in children with low socioeconomic status, low family income, low educated and unemployed parents, crowded families, excessive carbohydrate intake and less toothbrushes frequency.

The present study showed high prevalence and experience of dental caries among children and adolescents [