Oral health status and oral health behavior of kindergarten children with disabilities of Suphanburipanyanukul School, Suphan Buri Province

Abstract

          This cross-sectional study aimed to survey the oral health status and oral health behavior of children with disabilities and evaluate the association between tooth decayed and gingivitis and oral health behavior of kindergarten children of Suphanburipanyanukul special educational school, Suphan Buri Province. The total of 30 disabled children was included in this study. Oral health examination using World Health Organization (WHO) guideline and oral health behavior questionnaire were used in data collection. Descriptive statistics such as percentage, mean, standard deviation, and inferential statistics using Chi-square were applied in this analysis.

          The result showed that most of the children were male and had the average age of 8.12 years old (SD=1.49). There were 17 children with autism (56.7%) and 13 children with Down’s syndrome (43.3%). The prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth were 53.3% and 16.7%, respectively. A mean of decayed, missing and filled (dmft) score in primary teeth of these children was 2.30±2.90 while a mean DMFT in permanent teeth was 0.30±0.75. The prevalence of delayed tooth development was 6.7% which occurred in Down’s syndrome children. Moreover, more than half of the children had gingivitis (66.7%). For the oral health behavior in receiving dental service, most of them used to receive dental service, meet dental personnel in a year, and have oral examination mostly from dental mobile unit. About oral hygiene, most of them brushed their teeth after meal immediately, brushed twice a day, in the morning and before bedtime with fluoride toothpaste. Most of them ate fruit and not quite often ate sweets except of snack.  No statistically significant association was found between dental caries, gingivitis and oral health behavior. However, there was marginal association between gingivitis and eating bread/cookie (p=0.051) and eating snack (p=0.057).

          In conclusion, the results of this study revealed that poor oral health still existed in this group of children. Oral health promotion and oral disease prevention are extremely needed to correct oral health behavior among this group of children.