Pattern of Presentation, Reason for Presentation and Treatment of Paediatric Dental Patients at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital: A Three-Year Review.

Background: Dental attendance is regarded as one of the essential pointers to oral health education and awareness. Dental visit of children is often dependent on factors related to the parents/caregivers' health seeking behaviour. Routine dental attendance has been shown to be associated with better oral health care.Objective: To assess the pattern of presentation, reason for presentation and treatment of paediatric dental patients at a tertiary institution in Nigeria.

Methodology: It was a retrospective study which involved data retrieval from the patient's record books from July 2018 to June 2021. Data on age, gender, presenting complaint, impression/diagnosis and treatment were collected from the dental records and analysed using IBM SPSS statistics version 22.

Result: Out of 6645 records, complete data of 329(5%) children were used for the study. Children within the age range of 6-12 years old were in the majority, 203(61.7%). Female children attended more 179 (54.4%) compared to the males 150 (45.6%). Pain was the major reason for dental attendance (41%) and the commonest diagnosis made was sequelae of dental caries 93 (23.4%). The treatment offered most was tooth extraction 124 (37.7%), while the least was apexogenesis 2 (0.6%). The relationship between age and sequelae of dental caries was statistically significant.

Conclusion: Children within the mixed dentition stage attended the clinic more because of complications of dental caries. Pain was the major complaint, and the majority of the children lost their teeth because they presented late.