Preferences Of Fluoride Application For Children With Mixed Dentition

Introduction: Dental caries are chronic conditions especially among children aged between 2 to 5yrs. The presence of untreated caries can affect the child's esthetics, causing them pain and interfering in the child's day to day activities. The use of fluoride in various methods such as water fluoridation, toothpaste, sealants, mouth rinses, and professional topical agents is considered a measure of great importance for the prevention of dental caries, owing to the anticariogenic property of dental caries. Aim: To analyse the preferences of fluoride application for children with mixed dentition. Materials and Methods: The study was performed as a retrospective study under a university setting in the outpatient department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry. Data was collected by reviewing patient records and analysed data of 56000 patients between June 2020 to Feb 2021. Verification of the data was done with the presence of additional reviewers by reviewing photographs of application of fluoride. Collected data was subjected to statistical analysis by chi-square test in SPSS software. Results: Among the 862 children, about 82.49 % of them preferred fluoride gel and 17.51% chose fluoride varnish. Comparison on gender showed fluoride gel was preferred by dentists in treating both male and female children, which was not statistically significant (p=0.3). Conclusion: Higher preference of fluoride gel was noticed when compared to fluoride gel when treating children with mixed dentition. There was no preference based on the gender of the children.