Periodontal Treatment Needs Amongst 9-14 Year-old Institutionalized Mentally Retarded Children in Mashhad, IRAN

Statement of problem: periodontal problems seem to be more common inmentally retarded children due to the poorer oral hygiene than in mentally healthychildren, but no data are available on periodontal treatment needs in these childrenin mashhad.purpose: the purpose of this study was to determine periodontal treatment needsof the mentally retarded children in mashhad, iran, using the community periodontalindex for treatment needs.materials and method: in this descriptive cross-sectional study, 258 mentallyretarded children aged 9-14 years consisting of 38 educable, 95 trainable and 125profound children residing in governmental and private centers in the city ofmashhad, iran were assessed for community periodontal index for treatmentneeds (cpitn). for analyzing the results of the study, t-test and analysis ofvariance (anova) were used. the level of significance was set at p <0.05.results: statistical analysis revealed that the mean cpitn among different agegroups was 1.34±0.49. the mean cpitn increased with age (p =0.01) and withthe level of mental retardation (p= 0.001). the treatments needed for most of thechildren were oral hygiene instruction (74.42%), followed by scaling (23.64%),and extensive periodontal treatments (1.16%). only, 0.78% of the populationdemonstrated healthy periodontal tissue. mean cpitn was significantly higher ingovernmental centers than private ones (p =0.02).conclusion: it was concluded that the periodontal treatment needs (oral hygieneinstruction) of the mentally retarded children was high in mashhad.