Prevalence of Dental Caries among Visually Impaired Institutionalized Adolescents in Lagos State.

OBJECTIVES: To assess and compare caries prevalence among institutionalized visually impaired and sighted 10dash;19 year old children in Lagos State, Nigeria. METHODS: A cross sectional study of institutionalized visually impaired and sighted 10-19-year-old adolescents was carried out using the World Health Organisation (WHO) Basic Oral Methods caries diagnostic criteria. A random sample of 10-19-year-old visually impaired and sighted institutionalised children was carried out. The mean decayed, missing, filled teeth (dmft/DMFT) and significant caries (SiC) indices of both groups were obtained and compared with Chi-square test using SPSS version 20. RESULTS: Mean age of visually impaired participants was 16 years while that of sighted was 12.5 years. The male to female ratio was 1:1 among the visually impaired participants and 1:1.5 among the sighted. Caries prevalence of 28.8% (64/222), mean dmft/DMFT 1.98+/-1.25 and 27.5% (63/229), mean dmft/DMFT 1.90+/-1.28 were obtained for the sighted and visually impaired 10dash;19 years old children respectively. The significant caries (SiC) indices for both groups were 3.3. CONCLUSION: Caries prevalence among the visually impaired and sighted adolescents in this study was considerable with no significant differences between them. Both populations had significant caries experiences. There is therefore need for oral health promotion among both sighted and visually impaired institutionalized adolescents in this environment.