Dental malocclusion risk factors in adolescents

Introduction: malocclusion is the third public health issue in the scale of priorities of oral health problems due to its high incidence and its early manifestation. Objective: to characterize the behavior of dental malocclusion risk factors in adolescents. Method: a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted, from September throughout November 2017, in a total of 35 adolescents (as universe) aged 11-13 years in the classroom 7mo.1 at the ESBU "Sergio Eloy Correa Cosme", located in Guantánamo municipality. Information was collected using an observation guide. The information was processed with the support of the SPSS statistical package, version 23.0. Results: the 71.4% of the population had risk factors, of which deforming habits such as onychophagia (25.7%) and tongue thrusting (22.9%) predominated. Malocclusion was present in 60% of the population, with predominance in males. Conclusions: more than half of the population presented malocclusion, of which males predominated. Most of the population presented risk factors, of which the most predominant were deforming habits such as onychophagia and tongue thrusting.