Oral health status of special children in Chandigarh Pannu K Parampreet1, Professor and Head, Galhotra Virat, Associate Professor, Bhalla Sumati, Senior Lecturer, Ahluwalia Pooja, Senior Lecturer 1Address for Correspondence: Dr. Parampreet K Pannu Department of Pedodontics & Preventive dentistry Gian Sagar Dental College and Hospital Ramnagar, Rajpura, Patiala, Punjab # 1006, sector 36-C, Chandigarh 160036
Online published on 7 December, 2011. Abstract Background This cross-sectional study was carried out to assess oral health status of 170 special children, aged between 6–15 years with a mental subnormality or a speech and hearing impairment, who were attending various special schools of Chandigarh. Material & method The dental caries experience was recorded according to the WHO Criteria 1987. The ‘Simplified Oral Hygiene Index’ was used for evaluation of oral hygiene status and the ‘Loe and Silness Gingival Index’ was used for assessing the severity of gingivitis in these children. The data was collected and analyzed using SPSS software package (version 11.0) and the statistical significance was tested using ‘chi-square’ and ‘t-test’. Results Prevalence of dental caries was found to be 89.33% in children with speech and hearing impairment and 76.92% in children with mental subnormality and the overall prevalence of dental caries was 83.01% in all the children. The ‘D'component represented the highest proportion of mean DMFT, thereby reflecting a high prevalence of untreated caries in these children. Oral health status was poor in children with mentally subnormality as compared to children with hearing and speech impairement. Conclusion Special children in this region have a high prevalence of dental caries, have poor oral hygiene and extensive unmet needs of dental treatment which requires immediate attention. Top Keywords Special children, Dental Caries, Oral Hygiene. Top |