Oral carriage of enterobacteriaceae among school children with chronic nail-biting habit

CONTEXT: Onychophagia or habitual nail-biting is widespread among children and adolescents, between 10 and 18 years. Prevalence estimates range from 30% during childhood to 45% in adolescence. Nail-biting habit can result in autoinoculation of pathogens and transmission of infection between body parts. AIMS: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the differences in prevalence of Enterobacteriaceae (E. coli and Enterobacter spp) in saliva samples from subjects with and without chronic nail-biting habit. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: One hundred and twenty-two subjects with chronic nail-biting habit and 122 subjects with no oral habit were enrolled in the study. All subjects were aged 11-15 years. The saliva samples were collected by oral rinse technique, samples were studied microbiologically. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Two-tailed Student's t-test and Chi-square/Fisher's exact test were used to find the significance of study parameters between the groups. RESULTS: Enterobacteriaceae were detected in the saliva samples of 80 of the 122 nail-biting subjects, whereas Enterobacteriaceae were detected in the saliva samples of only 10 of the 122 subjects who were not nail-biters. This difference in prevalence was statistically significant (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest a higher carriage of Enterobacteriaceae in the individuals having nail-biting habits when compared to individuals with no habits. Further studies need to be done to know the prevalence of Enterobacteriaceae species in different age groups.