Prevalence of Dental Malocclusions among 12-14-year-old students in East Mazandaran

Malocclusion is one of the most important dental malformations that can affect a personchr('39')s appearance and function and self-confidence. On the other hand, knowing the prevalence can be an effective aid in proper prevention and treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of malocclusion in children aged 14-12 years in East Mazandaran.

In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 1369 students aged 12 to 14 years old from 18 schools in 5 different regions of East Mazandaran province in the academic year of 1996-97 were randomly selected. Angles classification was used to determine the prevalence of dental malocclusions in the study population. After collecting data, data were entered into SPSS 22 software and Chi-square statistical analysis was used.

Among the 1369 students included in the study, class I malocclusion with 69.2% (948 people) had the highest prevalence among students (73.8% boys and 67.6% girls). Also, the prevalence of class II and III malocclusion among students was 163 (11.9%) and 61 (4.5%), respectively. Only 14.4% (197 people) of students had normal occlusion.

Based on the findings of our study, class I malocclusion was the most common and class III malocclusion was the least common among girls aged 12-14 years in East Mazandaran.