Improving the oral health of children with special educational needs. A feasibility study

    Project Details

    Description

    Dental decay is the most common non communicable disease worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 530 million children worldwide suffer from caries in their primary teeth. If dental decay is left untreated it can lead to the person experiencing pain, infection and can impact on sleep and eating. It can progress and lead to treatments such as fillings, root canal and extraction. It is one of the most common causes of hospital admissions in younger children even though it is a preventable disease.

    Children with disabilities have significant issues with access to dental care. Long referral waiting times and the backlog of patients generated by the COVID-19 pandemic have increased the difficulty of access for special needs and disabled patients even further.

    There are an estimated 1.5 million children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND) in the UK. They have more complicated medical and dental needs that could require more experienced dental professionals within the SEND field. Sadly, there are unmet dental needs for this community of children and young people leading to dental diseases that can impact their quality of life.
    A literature review was conducted focusing on oral health preventions and interventions within special schools. A search of journals and articles was conducted to investigate the current research surrounding oral health and prevention interventions in special schools.

    Subsequently, two focus groups with SEN schools were carried out. One that involved the Parents and carers of the children and the other that involved the staff within the school. Parents expressed the limitations and barriers of access to a dentist including the lack of suitability and how they have had to either wait a long time to gain access to a special care dentist or have to rely on using highstreet dentists who lack specific special care training for children with special needs and disabilities. The environment and treatment areas will not always be suitable for these children. The lack of continuity of appointments and therefore, screenings, is amongst the concerns of the parents. The school and parents provided positive ideas and opinions of how an oral health promotion and prevention intervention could be carried out in school. More work would be needed to create a thoughtful and careful plan for the pupils and the school staff.
    StatusFinished
    Effective start/end date15/05/2315/11/23

    Funding

    • NIHR Applied Research Collaborations Wessex: £6,033.00

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