Prevalence of Oral Habits in 11–13 year-old School Children in Gulbarga city, India

Objective: To assess the prevalence of oral habits in 11-13 year old children in Gulbarga city, India. Method: Data was gathered from 1000 children of age group 11-13 years, attending different primary schools of Gulbarga city. Information pertaining to the study was collected from the parents in the form of questionnaire, fallowed by the clinical examination of the subjects using torch, disposable mirror and the probe. Results: Out of 1000 children examined, 38% had oral habits, out of which 18% children had tongue thrusting habit, 17% had mouth breathing habit and only 3% had nail biting habit. There was no significant difference in prevalence of habits between male and female except for nail biting habit. Prevalence of the oral habit decreased with the increasing age. Conclusions: The data revealed that most of the children had oral habits. This highlights the importance of identifying children who are in need of preventive orthodontic treatment to avoid future occurrence of malocclusion. Further it is suggested that the same pattern of research has to be done on wide strata to identify the potentially occurring malocclusions.