11Vth BDS, M S Ramaiah Dental College, Bangalore, Karnataka
2Prof &HOD, Department of Public Health Dentistry Faculty of Dental Sciences, MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka
3Reader, Department of Public Health Dentistry, Faculty of Dental Sciences, MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka
4Post Graduate Students, Department of Public Health Dentistry, Faculty of Dental Sciences, MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka
*Corresponding Author Email: draniraj@gmail.com
Online published on 18 January, 2019.
To assess the oral health practices, status and caries experience among the visually impaired children.
A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2 blind schools of Bangalore city. A total of 43 individuals with mean age of 15.37 were included in the study. Ethical clearance was obtained from the ethics committee of FDS, MSRUAS. Permissions were taken from the respective schools. Data was collected by structured interview of each individual with a barrel shaped questionnaire. Questionnaires were related to their frequency of brushing, brushing technique, type of oral hygiene aids, and frequency of changing toothbrush, tongue cleaning, mouth rinsing and visit to the dentist. Clinical examination was done to record DMFT and OHI-S indices.
The oral hygiene practices vary from moderate to low grade. The mean DMF score was 1.58 and complete OHI was 1.21. The D component shows mean score of 1.02 and F component was 0.05.
Our study reveals that their oral health practices are lacking and the DMF scores tells us that 1 tooth of every child is carious. Therefore, proper planning is needed and programmes should be organised to provide oral health education and services for such special group.
