| Summary: | BACKGROUND: Dental caries is the most common childhood disease worldwide. Previous research on the associations between dental caries and height, weight and body-mass-index (BMI) among children has produced inconsistent results. Dental caries also has a negative impact on oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) in children. However, the precise nature and underlying mechanism of this relationship is yet to be fully investigated. Thus the PhD thesis aimed to assess the associations between dental caries and anthropometric measures (height, weight and BMI) among 5-9-year-old Bangladeshi children. A secondary aim was to examine whether any associations between dental caries and anthropometric measurements were explained by OHRQoL, in particular dental pain, eating difficulty, poor appetite and sleep disturbance. METHODS: A cross sectional observational study was conducted among 5-9-year-old children in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Data were collected from children and their parents from Dhaka Dental College Hospital and from three nearby primary schools. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to assess the associations of interest, adjusted for potential covariates. RESULTS: The final sample comprised 788 children. Dental caries and sepsis showed negative associations with height-for-age z-scores (HAZ), weight-for-age z-scores (WAZ) and BMI-for-age z-scores (BAZ) after adjusting for all confounders. Children who had higher level of caries and sepsis had lower HAZ, WAZ and BAZ compared to caries and sepsis free children. Adjusting for OHRQoL led to significant attenuation on associations between dental caries, sepsis and anthropometric outcomes. Moreover, OHRQoL showed significant inverse association with weight-for-age and BMI-for-age but not with height-for-age. Finally, amongst all potential mediators, adjusting for dental pain and eating difficulty led to significant attenuation on these associations. Therefore, dental pain and eating difficulty might be considered to partly explain the inverse associations. However, only eating difficulty showed significant inverse association with weight-for-age and BMI-for-age but not with height-for-age. Thus OHRQoL particularly eating difficulty might be considered on the hypothesized pathway of negative associations between dental caries, sepsis and weight-for-age and BMI-for-age. CONCLUSION: The results of this study provide evidence that dental caries was associated with lower height, weight and BMI among the study population. Secondly, OHRQoL particularly dental pain and eating difficulty partly explained the negative association.
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