title: THE STANDARD OF PLAYGROUNDS AND SAFETY MEASURES IN PREVENTION OF TRAUMATIC DENTAL INJURIES IN NIGERIAN PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Playgrounds provide a recreational refuge for children and play a role in the development of their cognitive, psychosocial, and physical coordination skills. Unfortunately, it may also be a source of traumatic dental injuries (TDI).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To assess the standards of playgrounds in primary schools in Southern Nigeria.
  
  
  METHODS
  Selected public and private primary schools in Lagos (Southwest), Enugu (Southeast) and Rivers (Southsouth) states of Nigeria.
  
  
  METHODS
  Multi-stage sampling was used to select 180 schools (30 private and 30 public schools in each state) spread across the 3 study states of Lagos, Enugu and Rivers of Nigeria. A structured questionnaire which was interview administered was used to obtain information from the head teachers of 180 selected schools in Southern geo-political zones of Nigeria. The presence or absence of playgrounds & play equipment; quality of playgrounds and equipment; and supervision of the pupils during play were assessed. Statistical comparison of public and private schools, as well as comparison between the three geopolitical zones was by chi square statistics and one way ANOVA respectively.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Playgrounds were present in 147(81.7%) schools; 83 (56.5%) and 64 (43.5%) were public and private schools respectively. Ninety three (51.7%) schools had teachers or minders at the play grounds during recreation. Most of the public schools had no minders. Majority (69.7%) of the playgrounds surfaces were bare earth. Ninety three (55.4%) schools had play equipment with about 7.5% of them padded. The maintenance of the play equipment was not regular in 54.3% of the schools. The impact absorbing surfaces under the play equipment were majorly (66.6%) pits filled with sand in the three zones while rubber matting was found only in 7.7% of schools which were exclusively in the Southwestern zone of the country.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Most of the schools had playgrounds but inadequate consideration was given to safety measures in terms of playground size, surfaces, equipment type, height and supervisions by teachers. We therefore recommended that playgrounds should be standardized in Nigerian primary schools and more awareness about the occurrence and prevention of TDI during recreation should be created in schools.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Dental Health, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
authors.forename: J O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Eigbobo
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Dental Health, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Nzomiwu
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Dental Health, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Nigeria, Enugu, Nigeria.
authors.forename: E O
authors.initials: EO
authors.lastname: Amobi
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Dental Health, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Etim
keywords: Children; Impact absorbing surface; Play equipment; Playground dental injuries; Southern Nigeria