• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.89-94
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• 2002

The present study attempts to find the ways to efficiently manage dental caries, one of the major causes of tooth loss, and to cope with oral diseases that deteriorate oral health. For this purpose, this study seeks to obtain fundamental data needed in planning the oral health projects. The study was conducted to the first-grade elementary school students in Hwa-Seong city, Gyeonggi-do, from April 1 - 30, 2002. The result was as follows: 1) Among a total of 2,710 subjects, 598 (274 boys and 324 girls) have more than 1 permanent tooth with a caries legion whether it was treated or not. 2) The number of permanent teeth examined is 6,029, in which girls' teeth are more (3,165) than boys' (2,864). 3) Out of a total of 6,029 teeth examined, 1,106 permanent teeth (508 boys' and 598 girls') have caries legions. 4) Out of 1,106 permanent teeth with caries legions, 170 (15.4%) were treated - 67 teeth for boys (13.2%) and 103 teeth for girls (17.2%). 5) 22.1% of the children have experienced dental caries in their permanent teeth. Among them, 20.1% are boys and 24.1% are girls. 6) The rate of the permanent teeth that once had, or now have caries legions are 21.2%, among which the rate for boy's teeth is 20.1% and that for girl's teeth is 22.1%. 7) The number of the permanent teeth that had caries legions is 0.5 for all the subjects. A boy has 0.4 and a girl has 0.5 teeth with caries legions regardless of whether it was treated or not. 8) The rate of the permanent teeth with caries legions is 86.7% for overall subjects - 88.3% for boys and 85.3% for girls. 9) The rate of treated permanent teeth is 13.3% for all the subjects - 11.7% for boys and 14.7% for girls. Based on the above result, the study draws a conclusion that in order to prevent dental caries in young students and to perform an early treatment for the dental caries that already occurred an oral health office should be installed at all the elementary schools so that elementary school students don't experience a loss of time and effort for learning and suffer nutritional imbalance or disorder. Besides, the oral health education concerning the importance of dental care should be conducted to the citizens, especially to the young people, in the community as an essential project of oral health centers in the community health offices, the public medical institutions.