Periodontal profile of 15- to 19-year-old West Malaysian secondary school students

A cross-sectional exploratory survey was conducted in six West Malaysian schools involving 762 fifteen- to eighteen-year-old secondary school students. Periodontal health status was assessed using the Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPITN), utilizing six index teeth to represent the six sextants of the mouth. The results indicated that 66.8% of the students examined had healthy gingiva (Score 0), 2.6% had bleeding of the gingiva on gentle probing, while 30.6% had calculus on their teeth. In terms of treatment needs, 35.0% of those examined needed oral hygiene education, 34.4%, on the other hand, required scaling. No student was found to require complex treatment. Sex-specific comparison revealed a slightly higher prevalence of calculus formation in male students. In terms of race, the Malays had a higher prevalence of calculus formation than either Chinese or Indians.