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To evaluate the comparative status of oral health practices, oral hygiene and periodontal status amongst visually impaired and sighted students
Author(s) -
Jain Ashish,
Gupta Jyoti,
Aggarwal Vyom,
Goyal Chinu
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
special care in dentistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.328
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1754-4505
pISSN - 0275-1879
DOI - 10.1111/j.1754-4505.2012.00296.x
Subject(s) - medicine , oral hygiene , hygiene , visually impaired , oral health , significant difference , dentistry , age groups , demography , optometry , pathology , sociology
The aim of this study was to evaluate the comparative status of oral health practices, oral hygiene, and periodontal status amongst visually impaired and sighted students. In this study, 142 visually impaired children from a blind school in the age group of 6–18 years were enrolled with a similar number of age and sex matched sighted students studying in different schools of Chandigarh. The outcome variables were oral hygiene practices, oral hygiene status, and periodontal status. The visually impaired had been found to have better oral hygiene practices, a nonsignificant difference of oral hygiene scores but a significantly high value for bleeding scores as compared to sighted students. Age wise comparisons showed that bleeding scores were highly significant in 9–11 years and 12–14 years age group as compared to 6–8 years and 15–18 years age group. It could be related that the increased prevalence of bleeding sites despite of better oral hygiene practices in visually impaired group might be the result of their handicap to visualize plaque.