Oral hygiene status and dental caries experience among visually impaired and hearing-impaired children between 6 to14 years of age in Delhi: A original research Chauhan Bhawana1,*, Chauhan Prabhav2, Arora Prachi3, Agrawal Shivani1, Khan Sumera Pervaiz1, Chaudhary Gaurav4 1M.D.S (III year), Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Shree Bankey Bihari Dental College & Research Centre, Masuri, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India 2Associate Professor, Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Shree Bankey Bihari Dental College & Research Centre, Masuri, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India 3Senior Lecturer, Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Shree Bankey Bihari Dental College & Research Centre, Masuri, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India 4M.D.S (II year), Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Shree Bankey Bihari Dental College & Research Centre, Masuri, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India *Corresponding Author: Bhawana Chauhan, M.D.S (III year), Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Shree Bankey Bihari Dental College & Research Centre, Masuri, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Online Published on 10 January, 2024. Abstract Background Comparing oral health status between different groups of special care children would help in obtaining baseline data to assess their oral health needs to recommend appropriate preventive measures thereby justifying the need for this study. Aim The aim of this study was to compare the oral hygiene status and dental caries experience among visually and hearing impaired children. Methodology A total of 600 children were taken as sample size and divided into three groups of 200 each comprising of DMFT indices were used to record the oral hygiene status and dental caries experience of both the groups respectively. The data thus recorded was sent for statistical analysis. Results Mean OHI-S score for hearing impaired was 2.05 ± 0.97 while it was 2.59 ± 1.02 for visually impaired children. The caries prevalence was found to be more in the visually as compared to the hearing impaired subjects. The difference was observed to be statistically significant in both variables between the two groups whereas the difference between the above mentioned groups and the control group were found to be significantly higher. Conclusion Oral hygiene status and caries experience of hearing impaired children was significantly better than visually impaired and the difference was found to be statistically significant. Top Keywords Visually impaired, Hearing impaired, OHI-S. Top |