Oral Health and Dental Management

Oral health knowledge, practice, oral hygiene status and dental caries prevalence among visually impaired student in Alnoor institute of AL Madina AL Munawara, Saudi Arabia

4^th Asia Pacific Congress & Expo on Dental and Oral Health

July 27-29, 2015 Brisbane, Australia

Azzah Alhazmi, Ishraq Alshinqiti and Fayez Aloufi

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: Oral Health Dent Manag

Abstract:

Aim: To investigate the oral health knowledge, practice, oral hygiene status and the prevalence of dental caries among visually impaired students in Alnoor Institute at Al Madinah, Saudi Arabia. Materials & Methods: The study population consisted of 64 visually impaired students attending Alnoor institute at Al Madeinah in the age group of (7-24). The study was conducted to assess oral health knowledge and practice through interview questionnaire.The simplified oral hygiene index was used to assess oral hygiene and DMFT/dmft for caries prevalence. Result: The study revealed 4.84% of the students were free of caries while caries prevalence is 95.16% which is very high and coincide when comparing it to control group from other study in the same area. The mean of DMFT/dmft is low 0.24/0.59 that is may be due to various reasons ranging from biochemical differences in salivary buffering to differences in living environment, dietary and hygiene habits. This study revealed insignificant between neither the mean of DMFT/dmft for both gender Male & Female 0.24/0.57 and 0.24/0.65 nor the mean of plaque index 1.5/1.33 respectively. Also the age group distribution was insignificant. Among Survey 93.7% agree with role of sugar in leading to caries while 3.1% disagree & 3.1% they don?t know. There was 85.9% who do brush their teeth and 14.1% don?t. There was 87.5% agree with that brushing will prevent caries but 9.47% they did not agree. For the method of brushing it was found that 93.2 % use tooth brush 3.4 % use fingers and 3.4% use Meswak . Conclusion: The finding of the study revealed high caries prevalence and low DMFT/dmft and more than 2/3 of the sample have =>1-2 soft debris accumulation. A little extra care by the parent or caregiver regarding oral hygiene can give drastic result in reduction of dental caries and gingival disease.