Timing of Permanent Teeth Emergence and Dental Caries among Jatsikh Children of Public and Government Schools of Patiala District

The purpose of this study is to establish the median timing of permanent teeth emergence in a low to high socio-economic level school children. A sample of 1648 Jat-Sikh children which includes 821 children (452 boys, 369 girls) from public schools and 827 children (377 boys, 460 girls) from government schools forms the basis of this study. Each child has been studied for permanent dental eruption and dental caries. The median emergence times have been found in general relatively advanced in public school children with few exceptions although differences are not to the level of significance when compared with government school children. The girls from both public and government schools have been found to be relatively advanced in their emergence times except for first maxillary molar and mandibular central incisors which make their appearance earlier in public school boys and the differences have been found to be statistically non significant. Therefore no differences in dental eruptions between Govt. and Public schools have been observed. No bilateral differences and no sex differences in eruption timings have been observed. The incidence of dental caries has been found to be high in public school children i.e.7.30% in boys and 8.94% in girls as compared to government school children, where the percentage has been found to be 6.36% in boys and 5.77% in girls