Dental Caries experience of Haemophilic children aged 1-6 years

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

Evaluating The Impact of Giving Tooth Brushing Story Books on The Dental Plaque Levels of Children; A Parallel Arm Non-Randomized Clinical Trial

Objective: To assess the effect of giving toothbrushing storybooks along with verbal oral hygiene (OHI) instructions on plaque levels to schoolchildren. Methodology: This quasi-experimental study was conducted in a private school in Islamabad from October to November 2022. Children in Class V were selected as the Experimental Group I (Storybooks + OHI), while Class IV children were placed in the Control Group II (OHI alone). There were 20 students in each group. Plaque levels were compared at the baseline (before intervention) and after seven days. Toothbrushing practices were recorded at the baseline. Results: The mean age of the children was 9.6 + 1.08 years. A total of 16 (40%) boys and 24 (60%) girls were included in the study. Children in Group II had significantly better self-reported toothbrushing practices with 16 (80%) children brushing twice a day, as compared to 10 (50%) children from Group I (p = 0.041). There was no difference in the reduction in plaque scores between group I (0.14 + 0.21) and group II (0.08 + 0.21; p = 0.382). Conclusion: Giving story books to children is not an effective intervention to improve the oral hygiene status of children, as compared to oral hygiene instructions alone