Oral health practice, incidence of Dental Caries, and Plaque index of Visually Impaired students

Introduction: Oral health is an integral part of a person’s holistic health but it still an alarming health concern in the Philippines. This research focused on visually impaired students which are a vulnerable population that is rarely seen in our local researches. Blind patients have a higher prevalence of dental caries because they cannot envision the plaque and caries in their oral cavity and would often struggle to obtain dental care due to their increased anxiety (Bennadi et al, 2013 &Mohan et al, 2016). Methods: This is a cross-sectional observational study that aims to produce an oral hygiene braille manual through the extent of oral health practice, incidence of dental caries, and plaque index of the visually impaired students of Philippine National School for the Blind (PNSB). It is patterned from a published journal by Al-Sinaidi (2013). The questionnaire 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 hygiene practice. Results of this survey will be correlated with the student’s caries and plaque using the following index respectively: Decayed Missing Filled Teeth (DMFT)/Simplified Oral Hygiene Index (OHI-S) form. Results: Only 17 students participated in this study and they range from grade levels of 1-10 and ages from 8-21 years old. Eight out of seventeen participants are low-vision while the rest are totally blind. The usual participants’ family income in a month ranges from below 10,000-20,000php. Oral health practices, Plaque index, and caries incidence resulted in Fair verbal interpretation. All correlations deemed statistically non-significant. Though results differ from other researches, wherein visually impaired students have a high incidence of caries and periodontal disease, there is still a need for prevention to aim for Good Oral health practice. Hence, the creation of a Manual focused on Preventive Dentistry. Discussion: This pilot research had a lot of flaws that might have resulted in a non-significant result different from studies done internationally. Nevertheless, it fills up the research gap and would be a beginning of awareness in researching and giving importance to the oral health of the visually-impaired community.