Azzah Alhazmi¹, Ishraq Alshinqiti¹, Fayez Aloufi¹, Abdulmoeen Alhejali², Waleed Alsulaimani^3,, Mohammed Alharbi⁴

Aim: to investigate the oral health knowledge, practice, oral hygiene status and the prevalence of dental caries among visually impaired student in Alnoor institute of Almadinah, Saudi Arabia. Material and methods: the study population consisted of 64 visually impaired student attending Alnoor institute in Almadinah in the age group of (7-24) years old. Interview questionnaires were used to assess oral health knowledge and practice through. The simplified oral hygiene index was used to assess oral hygiene and DMFT/dmft for caries prevalence. Result: the study revealed 4.84% of the students were free of caries while caries prevalence is 95.16% which is very high and coincide when comparing it to control group from other study in the same area. The mean of DMFT/dmft is low 0.24/0.59 and the reason for that may be various, ranging from biochemical differences in salivary buffering to differences in living environment, dietary and hygiene habits. This study revealed insignificant between neither the mean of DMFT/dmft for both gender Male & Female 0.24/0.57 and 0.24/0.65 nor the mean of plaque index 1.5/1.33 respectively. Also the age group distribution was insignificant. Among Survey 93.7% agree with role of sugar in leading to caries while 3.1% disagree & 3.1% they don't know. There is 85.9 % do brushing of their teeth and 14.1% they don't. There is 87.5% agree with that brushing will prevent caries but 9.47% they disagree. For the method of brushing it was found that 93.2 % use tooth brush 3.4 % use fingers and 3.4% use meswak. Conclusion: the finding of this study revealed high caries prevalence and low DMFT/dmft and more than 2/3 of the sample have equal or greater than 1-2 soft debris accumulation. A little extra care by the parent or caretaker regarding oral hygiene can give drastic result in reduction of dental caries and gingival disease.

oral hygiene, prevalence of dental caries, visually impaired