Prevalence of malocclusion in Chinese schoolchildren from 1991 to 2018: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract Background Malocclusion is a common oral health problem in schoolchildren. Literature describing the prevalence of malocclusion varies substantially across China. Aim This study identified the epidemiological characteristics of malocclusion among Chinese schoolchildren from 1991 to 2018. Design Six English and Chinese electronic databases were searched through November 2018. The search was supplemented by hand searching to identify relevant surveys. The overall prevalence of malocclusion was estimated by a random‐effects meta‐analysis model, and variations in different groups were assessed by subgroup meta‐analysis. Results Thirty‐seven eligible articles describing 117 682 samples were investigated. The pooled national prevalence for malocclusion was 47.92% (95% CI: 58.6%‐71.9%). For the Angle classification, the overall prevalence rates were 30.07% (95% CI: 25.37%‐35.48%), 9.91% (95% CI: 7.41%‐13.79%), and 4.76% (95% CI: 3.85%‐6.54%) for Class I, Class II, and Class III malocclusion, respectively. A deep overbite (16.67%, 95% CI: 11.50%‐23.08%) was shown to be the most common trait of malocclusion. When stratified by sex, males had a slightly higher prevalence than females (RR = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.01‐1.06). More importantly, an ascending trend and substantial variations across the country were observed. Conclusions Our results confirmed that malocclusion has become a serious oral health problem in Chinese schoolchildren, highlighting the need for proactive interventions at an early age. Moreover, high‐quality epidemiological studies on malocclusion are still required.