Oral Health Practice, Incidence of Dental Caries, and Plaque Index of Visually Impaired Students: A Basis for the Development of Oral Hygiene Braille Manual

Abstract

Oral health is an integral part of a person’s holistic health but it still an alarming health concernin the Philippines. This research focused on visually impaired students. Blind patients have ahigher prevalence of dental caries because they cannot envision the plaque and caries in theiroral cavity and would often struggle to obtain dental care due to their increased anxiety.This is a cross-sectional observational study that aimed to produce an oral hygiene braillemanual based on the extent of oral health practice, incidence of dental caries, and plaque indexof the visually impaired students in a local school that caters for visually impaired. Thequestionnaire form has 3 parts: (1) consent form (2) demographic questions: sight impairment,primary care giver’s income, age, gender (3) and questions concerning their oral hygienepractice. Results were correlated with the student’s caries and plaque using the following index: Decayed Missing Filled Teeth(DMFT)/Simplified Oral Hygiene Index (OHI-S) .Seventeen (17) students participated in the study, ranging from grade levels 1-10 and agesfrom 8-21 years old. Eight (8) out of seventeen (17) participants have low-vision while the restare totally blind. The participants’ monthly family income ranges from below 10,000-20,000php. All correlations were statistically non-significant. But since Oral health practices,plaque index, and caries incidence were fair there is a need for prevention to aim for good oralhealth practice hence, the creation of a manual focused on preventive dentistryThis pilot research had limitations that might have lead to the non-significant results of thestudy such as: limited sample size, Hawthorne effect and limitation of index used. Therefore,the author recommends future researchers to improve the survey questionnaires and use a moreaccurate index to a larger sample size.