Dental visit experience and dental care barriers among Hong Kong preschool children with special education needs.

Abstract

Children with special education needs (SEN) require additional supports in education settings, as well as extra supports in healthcare services. To investigate dental visit experience and dental care barriers among Hong Kong preschoolers with SEN. This was designed as a cross-sectional study. A structured questionnaire was employed to investigate dental attendance and dental care barriers among Hong Kong preschoolers with SEN. Binary logistic regression and multi-factor ANOVA were performed to identify factors associated with children's dental visit experience. A total of 383 children were included in the final analysis. The average age of the recruited children was 3.87±0.95 years. 72.5% parents reported that dental visits were a challenging task for their children. Among children with caries, 70.7% had never visited a dentist. Regression models indicated that (a) children over 3years or children whose parents received tertiary education were more likely to visit a dentist; (b) the existence of dental care barriers was associated with children's primary diagnosis, practical skills, conceptual skills, and parents' education attainment; and (c) children with low conceptual skills (95%CI:0.71 to 2.40, P<.001), or children from low-income families (95%CI:1.21 to -0.06, P=.031) had more dental care barriers than their counterparts. Unmet dental treatment needs and dental care barriers existed among pre-schoolers with SEN. Dental care barriers were associated with children's developmental profile, parents' education attainment, and household income.