Findings

What do systematic reviews say?

Refine by population, intervention, comparison or outcome
More filters
Evidence found and GRADE certainty

199 questions · 351 findings · 38 reviews

No studies found 0 · 0%GRADE not reported 338 · 96.3%Very low 4 · 1.1%Low 8 · 2.3%Moderate 1 · 0.3%High 0 · 0%

Unfavourable oral hygiene and dietary habits (frequent sweet/sugar consumption; low toothbrushing frequency in early childhood) vs Favourable oral hygiene and dietary habits

Caries development in permanent teeth · School children and adolescents (6-18 years) followed from primary dentition (baseline examination before 72 months of age)

Early-childhood oral hygiene and dietary habits show inconsistent associations with permanent-teeth caries, often losing significance after adjustment for past caries (2 studies; not pooled; not GRADE-rated).

1 finding from 1 review

Low tooth brushing frequency (<2 times/day) vs High tooth brushing frequency (>=2 times/day)

Early childhood caries (ECC) · Healthy children under 6 years of age (6 months to 6 years); preschool children

After excluding an extreme outlier (Alhabdan 2018), the association between low brushing frequency and ECC remained statistically significant (pooled OR approximately 2.0, p=0.003; I2=87.5%); the exact estimate and its CI were not reported; ungraded.

2 findings from 1 review

Not applicable (single-group prevalence) vs Not applicable (single-group prevalence)

Early childhood caries (ECC) · Children aged 0-5 years in North Africa

Pooled ECC prevalence in Tunisia was 38% (95% CI 24-51), significantly lower than Egypt and Sudan.

10 findings from 1 review
Show 7 more findings

Higher parental education (tertiary) vs Lower parental education (reference)

Early childhood caries (ECC) · Children aged 0-5 years in North Africa

Paternal tertiary education was associated with lower odds of ECC (OR 0.381).

3 findings from 1 review

Secondary (passive/secondhand) smoking exposure during childhood vs No secondary smoking exposure

Caries prevalence (early childhood caries) · Preschool children aged <=71 months (caries outcome assessed at 3-6 years)

Preschool children exposed to secondary smoking have higher odds of caries prevalence (OR 1.77), but the cross-sectional evidence is very uncertain (very low certainty).

2 findings from 1 review

Brushing vs Brushing less than daily

Early childhood caries (ECC) · Children aged 0-5 years in North Africa

Brushing twice daily was associated with lower odds of ECC (OR 0.033).

2 findings from 1 review

Sugar consumption (higher sugar intake) vs No sugar consumption (lower/no intake)

Early childhood caries (ECC) · Preschool children (<6 years)

Higher sugar consumption is associated with early childhood caries in children under 6 years: pooled OR 1.59 (95% CI 1.50 to 1.68) from 9 cohort studies with no heterogeneity (I2=0%); the body of evidence was not GRADE-rated (ungraded).

1 finding from 1 review

Older child age (months) vs Younger age (reference)

Early childhood caries (ECC) · Children aged 0-5 years in North Africa

Age 48-59 months was associated with higher odds of ECC (OR 2.602).

2 findings from 1 review

Timing of first dental visit vs Reference visit timing

Early childhood caries (ECC) · Children aged 0-5 years in North Africa

An early first dental visit was associated with much lower odds of ECC (OR 0.042).

2 findings from 1 review