TITLE:
Prevalence of Orthodontic Malocclusions among Adolescents: A National Survey
AUTHORS:
Ousehal Lahcen, Kabak Hiba, Dahri Ikrame
KEYWORDS:
Malocclusions, Prevalence, Adolescents
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.11 No.8,
August
13,
2024
ABSTRACT: The aim of our study is to determine the prevalence of orthodontic anomalies among high-school teenagers in Morocco and to establish possible associations between various malocclusions and the variables sex, age and socio-economic level. We studied the prevalence on a sample which was randomly selected and which included 7865 students from sixteen secondary schools in Morocco, of different socio-economic levels, including 4332 girls and 3533 boys. The results have shown that approximately 34.45% had normal occlusion and 65.55% had at least one malocclusion. In fact, 32.47% of the examined pupils had class 2 malocclusions (division 1: 24.35%; division 2: 8.12%) and 10.33% had class 3 malocclusions. 56.36% of the sample had a normal overbite, 30.51% an overbite ≥ 3 mm while only 13.12% had an overbite ≤ 2 mm. Dental crowding was the most frequent with a percentage of 57.22%, whereas, the results regarding the midline diastemas showed that 12.84% of the subjects had diastemas. The values of anterior and posterior crossbites were respectively 14.93% and 9.22%. Therefore, Moroccan adolescents have a high need in terms of orthodontic care.