[News on prevalence of vicious habits in children].

AIM: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of oral habits among children according to sex and location.

MATERIAL AND

METHODS

This study was conducted on 416 children aged 6-11 years old. The children were selected from urban and rural schools of Bacau and Iasi, Romania. Sex and location differences were calculated by using Fisher's exact test.

RESULTS

The results showed that the prevalence of oral habits was 38,70%; girls (61,5%) were more affected than boys and also the children from urban schools 65,8%. Mouth breathing was the commenest habit (59,5%), followed by thumb thrust (21,5%) and finger sucking (14,1%). The presence or absence of a habit was recording by interview and clinical examination.

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of vicious habits in children in our study was 38.70% - representative of the population prevalence of children aged 6-11 years in Romania.