Dental Caries experience of Haemophilic children aged 1-6 years

Abstract

Objective: To determine the dental caries experience in haemophilic children aged 1-6 years.
Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Dental Department of Children’s Hospital, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, Pakistan between April 2015 and September 2019 after the Ethical Review Board approval.. All the participants were screened for dental caries using the DMFT index. Examiners were trained & calibrated prior to the screening process. A dental record form was developed for recording the details; this was validated through a pilot study. Descriptive analysis of the data was carried out using SPSS v.20.0.
Results: Caries prevalence was found to be 82.8% with a mean dmft score of 3.99 (± 3.07) of which decayed teeth constituted 3.55. The mean dmft scores for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6-years old were 0.80 (±1.42), 2.83 (± 2.39), 3.93(±3.41), 4.11 (± 3.76), 4.42 (± 2.89) and 4.44 (± 2.85) respectively. Among the sample of 273 children 43 (15.8%) children claimed that they regularly brush their teeth twice a day, 134 (49.1%) brushed once a day while 96 (35.2%) children stated that they did not brush their teeth at all.
Conclusion: Dental Caries is more prevalent in haemophilic children as compared to their normal healthy counterparts. The need for preventive measures & better healthcare facilities was also realized.