Volume 26, Issue 124, June 2022

Birth order as a predictor of dental caries: A systematic review and meta-analysis of case-control and prevalence data from the last decade

Munirah Ibrahim Alsaeed¹, Abdullah Omar Alabdulkarim², Ruba Saud Alkabani³

¹General Practitioner, Ministry of Health, KSA
²Medical intern, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), KSA
³Pediatric Resident at King Saud Medical City, KSA

ABSTRACT

Aim: This systematic review aims to quantitatively assess the association between birth order and dental caries. Methods: In this systematic review, we identified the studies that were published in the last ten years in four electronic databases that are PubMed, Web of Science through Clarivate, MEDLINE through Clarivate, and EBSCO. We used the “Rayyan – Intelligent systematic reviews” website for duplicate removal and study screening. Review Manager 5.4 was used for quantitative data synthesis to estimate pooled odds ratios (OR). Higgin’s I2 test was used for detecting inter-study heterogeneity, and visual inspection of funnel plots was used to detect publication bias. Results: Our study included 83286 children from 7 studies. Our results indicated a considerable risk for being born second or younger (OR = 1.13 95% CI [1.09, 1.17], P < 0.001, I2 = 96%), the third or younger (OR = 1.61 95% CI [1.53, 1.70], P < 0.001, I2 = 95%), the fourth or younger (OR = 2.46 95% CI [2.25, 2.70], P < 0.001, I2 = 94%), and being among each study’s youngest group (OR = 2.41 95% CI [2.16, 2.69], P < 0.001, I2 = 96%). Conclusion: The risk of caries was shown to be directly connected to a child’s ordinal rank in the household. We discovered a significant risk that grows as the birth order rises. Because our data in all pooled studies were varied, caution should be exercised in interpreting the results.

Keywords: Dental caries; birth order; children; meta-analysis

Medical Science, 2022, 26, ms210e2171

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi/v26i124/ms210e2171

Published: 05 June 2022