Abstract
Author(s): Shiva Motaghi and Maryam Kazempour*Introduction: Different studies examining the oral health condition of autistic children, and presenting inconsistent results. Regarding this, the aim of this work is comparison between children with autism and healthy normal in the case of dental caries.
Materials and Methods: This case-control study was performed on 48 autistic cases and 50 normal children in the age group 7 to 12 years. The age, gender of participants was documented. The situation of the decayed, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT; both permanent and primary) and also OHI-S index (simplified oral hygiene index) was evaluated. The Mann-Whitney U and Chi-square tests were used to analyze the results. P-value less than 0.05 were noticed remarkable statistically.
Results: Considerable difference was seen between autistic and normal groups regarding OHI-S index (P=0.000). In addition, there were remarkable difference between two groups regarding the DMFT index in the primary (P=0.001) and permanent (P=0.00) teeth. What is more, comparison with normal group, children with autism showed more needs in primary dentition (P=0.002).
Conclusion: The results of the study showed, there were comparable DMFT, dmft and OHI-S index between autism and healthy children. Whatever, the unmet dental needs of the healthy children in the primary dentition was lesser than autism children?