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Oral health inequalities between differently abled and healthy school children in Bengaluru—A cross‐sectional study
Author(s) -
Rajput Soni,
Kumar Amit,
Puranik Manjunath P,
Sowmya KR
Publication year - 2019
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/scd.12432
Subject(s) - medicine , oral health , mann–whitney u test , logistic regression , cross sectional study , dentistry , chi square test , oral health care , demography , statistics , mathematics , pathology , sociology
Abstract Aim To assess oral health inequalities between differently‐abled and healthy school children. Methods The study was conducted on a sample of 300 differently‐abled and 300 healthy school children in Bengaluru. A calibrated investigator recorded oral health status according to World Health Organization (WHO) proforma 2013. Chi‐square/Fisher exact test, Mann‐Whitney U test, and multiple logistic regression were applied. A p ‐value < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results Mean DMFT in the study group and the control group was 1.32 ± 1.36 and 1.25 ± 1.21 respectively. In the study group, 52.7% had gingival bleeding compared to 41.0% in the control group. Within the study group, children who belonged to the lower middle class (aOR = 2.02) were more likely to have caries experience whereas visually impaired children (aOR = 0.32), speech and hearing impaired children (OR = 0.10), children suffering from polio (aOR = 0.80), and those with caries‐free in deciduous dentition (aOR = 0.42) were less likely to have caries experience in permanent teeth ( p < 0.05). Conclusion Oral health i nequalities exist for differently‐abled children. Hence, improvement of their oral health status and priority care are needed.