Assessment of Oral Health Status among Orphanage Children (Underprivileged Population): A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: An orphan is a child under 18 year who has lost both parents or has been abandoned by them. Such children are deprived of the parental love and care and get little health care as well as their oral cavity is  generally neglected. AIM: To assess the dental caries experience, oral hygiene status and periodontal status among the orphanage children in Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh, India. MATERIALS AND METHOD: A cross sectional study among 485 orphan children of various institutes ranged from 12 to 16 years where WHO oral health assessment form 2013 was used and chi- square test and descriptive statistics test  were used for statistical analysis by using SPSS 22.0 software. RESULTS: It was seen that 73.4% were having dental caries and  the mean DI-S scores, CI-S scores and OHI-S scores were 1.41 ±0.47,  1.07 ±0.47 and 2.48 ±0.92 respectively. The prevalence and severity of gingival bleeding was found to be more  i.e.64.7% among them. CONCLUSION: Majority of orphan children were suffering from oral problems. Oral health fraternity should actively involve with other parts of the community in order  to maintain oral care of this group.