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Introduction: Oral health has great impact on the overall health and well-being of an individual. The Disability Discrimination Act, 1995 states that there is need to ensure removal of all the barriers to dental care for this group of individuals and provide equal access for all. Hence, the present study aimed to create awareness on the importance of the oral health care needs among visually impaired children. Objectives: To assess the oral health knowledge, attitude and awareness using Braille-scripted questionnaire and to evaluate and correlate the influence on oral hygiene practices following oral health education using Braille-formatted material. Materials and methods: A total of 100 visually impaired children were selected randomly from two residential blind institutes. Twenty open-ended Braille-formatted questions were scripted in regional language (Kannada) and were distributed to all the children. At baseline, simplified oral hygiene index (OHI-S) was recorded. Children were provided with oral hygiene instructions verbally and in Braille-formatted material individually. At the end of 2 months, the OHI-S index was rerecorded. Data collected were statistically analyzed. Results: Basic oral health knowledge was fair as evidenced by many children. The study revealed that 67% of children were aware of the importance of health of mouth and teeth over the health of body. In the present study, 78% of children cited that mother was the one who takes care of teeth. These dental visits were mostly reported either as attending the dentist whenever they had dental problems (38%) or as never having visited dentist 36%. The OHI-S scores before and after intervention showed highly statistically significant results (p = 0.001). Conclusion: Visually impaired children showed acceptable improvement following Braille-scripted oral hygiene instructions with the key factor being the repetition and reinforcement of those instructions.

Evaluating the Oral Health Knowledge and the Status of Visually Impaired Children using Braille