A Comparative Evaluation of Chewable Toothbrush and Audio Tactile Performance Method on Oral Hygiene Maintenance in Visually-Impaired and Hearing-Impaired Children

Abstract

Introduction: Visually-impaired and hearing-impaired children daily encounter obstacles in maintaining good oral hygiene as these children lack the normal ability to watch, listen and respond to the audible sounds they are deprived of learning and imitating healthy oral hygiene measures.

Objectives: Clinical efficacy comparison of manual toothbrush, chewable toothbrush and audio-tactile performance method (ATP) on oral hygiene maintenance in visually-impaired and hearing-impaired children.

Materials and Methods: A single-blind crossover study was conducted on 60 visually impaired (group I) and 60 hearing-impaired (group II) children (9-16 years) who matched the inclusion criteria. Each group was then divided into three equal subgroups based on the method utilized. Group A: Manual toothbrush without brushing instructions, Group B: Chewable toothbrush and Group C: ATP using Manual Toothbrush. Oral hygiene index simplified (OHI-S) and Turesky Gilmore Glickman modification of the Quigley Hein plaque index (TQHPI) scores were recorded at baseline, one month, two months and three months. The collected data was subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS 22.0. The intragroup ANOVA and the intergroup t-test were applied. A p -‘value<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: In the group I intragroup comparison, group IC showed a statistically significant difference (0.010) after a one-month follow-up for OHI-S and after two-and three-month follow-ups (0.007 & 0.000) for TQHPI. In the group II intragroup comparison, group IIA was significant after the OHI-S follow-up of 1 (0.050), 2 (0.002), and 3 (0.002) months, and it was highly significant after the TQHPI follow-up of 1 (0.000) and 2 (0.002) months. In the intergroup comparison, group IC's OHI-S difference with Group II was significant (0.035) after one-month follow-up and group IIA showed significant differences from group I after two (0.0017) and three (0.002) months of follow-up for OHI-S. Compared to group I, both groups IIA and IIB were highly significant after 1 (0.000 & 0.001), 2 (0.000 & 0.004), and 3 (0.000 & 0.003) months follow-up for TQHPI.

Conclusion: When compared to chewable and manual toothbrushes, the ATP technique proved to be beneficial for visually impaired children. For hearing-impaired children, manual and chewable toothbrushes proved to be more effective than the ATP approach.