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Volume 6 Issue 7 (July, 2018)

Original Articles

Oral Hygiene Practices and Dental Health Status of the Street Children of Varanasi, India: A Cross Sectional Descriptive Study
Faizia Rahman, Naveen Kumar, Atul Bhatnagar, Farhan Durrani, Sarita Parihar, Shivam Kesarwani

Introduction: Parental and family care is the prime need of any child which helps him to develop into a confident human being with sound general and oral health.Street children are at an increased risk for specific health problems including dental caries. Aims and objectives: The present study was taken up to assess the oral hygiene practices and DMFT and dmft status of street children of Varanasi. Materials and methods: A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among 384 street children across the city of Varanasi. Consent was obtained prior to the start of the study; decayed, missing, filled teeth (dmft) and decayed, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT) indices were used to assess the caries status of primary and permanent dentition. Pre formulated questionnaire was used to collect data about their oral hygiene habits. Results: 75% of the children were using toothbrush as oral hygiene maintenance measures and the caries prevalence was 28.15%. The mean DMFT value obtained was 0.34±0.848 for boys and 0.04±0.206 for the girls.In the deciduous dentition a mean dmft of 0.22±.648 and 0.35±0.674 was recorded for the boys and girls respectively.Majority of the children were using toothbrush (75%) and toothpaste (84.37%) for maintaining oral hygiene and a significant association between dmft and frequency of brushing and DMFT and brushing aids was found. Conclusion: Oral health of the street children of Varanasi area was satisfactory and acceptable but required more enforcement towards oral hygiene practices. Key words: DMFT, dmft, Vagabond, Oral Hygiene, Varanasi.

 
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