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Prevalence of Malocclusion in Children between the Age of 10-15 Years in Calabar Metropolis, Cross River.

INTRODUCTION/OBJECTIVE
Malocclusion has previously been reported by some Nigerian authors with different prevalence values, but not one can be found about population from Calabar area of the country. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of malocclusion amongst school children who are between the ages of 10-15 years in Calabar metropolis.


METHODS
This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among school children aged 10-15 years in four secondary schools in Calabar metropolis, Cross River state, Nigeria. A total of 437 children satisfied the inclusion criteria. They were examined and their occlusal variations such as crossbite, open bite, deep bite, scissors bite, spacing/midline diastema, and molar relationship were recorded. Data was tabulated and analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Analysis of Variance.


RESULTS
The results revealed that the overall prevalence of malocclusion was 65%. A total of 84.4% of the children had Angle's class I malocclusion, classes II and III malocclusions were observed in 11.5% and 4.1% of the children respectively; 16.5% showed deep bite, 5.0% had reduced overbite and 7.6% had anterior open bite. About 5.5% (five point five percent) had anterior crossbite, while 3.7% (three point seven percent) had posterior crossbite, 0.5% (zero point five percent) had scissors bite; generalized spacing was observed in 7.4%, (seven point four), while 32.7%, (thirty two point seven percent) had upper and lower midline diastema and 14.2% had crowding. There was no significant difference in gender distributions of malocclusions in this population.


CONCLUSION
The study revealed a high prevalence of malocclusion in Calabar with a significant percentage of them showing class I malocclusion.