Monitoring oral health and dental attendance in an outpatient psychiatric population

Abstract

Impaired mental health has been associated with an increased need for dental care. Population surveys have indicated that people with enduring mental health problems make less frequent planned visits to the dentist and report a greater number of missing teeth than the general population. The study aims to examine oral health status, attendance to dental care, and medication in an outpatient psychiatric sample. A descriptive study combining a structured interview with a visual oral examination carried out in 113 outpatients under psychiatric care. Dental health was described in terms of sound, missing and/or filled teeth, and showed a relation between these categories and types of psychiatric diagnosis, age and numbers of antidepressant and neuroleptic drugs. Oral hygiene was found to be more neglected among men and in patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia. The need of dental treatment was widespread, although regular dental visits were commonly reported. In order to maintain good oral health, regular dental check-ups should be encouraged for patients under psychiatric care. Further studies are required to reveal contributory causes for/to decreased oral health. The difficulty such individuals have in maintaining additional self-efficacy raises questions about the necessity for oral health interventions in outpatient psychiatric services.

Oral Health Is a Challenging Problem for Patients with Schizophrenia: A Narrative Review

“…We identified 14 articles that dealt with dental status (16,18,(20)(21)(22)24, 26, 27, 30-33, 36, 37) 6 with periodontal status (15,19,22,27, 31, 34), 7 with associated variables studies with oral health (18,20,26,29,30,34,35), 3 on the use of dental and somatic care (17,28,29), and 2 about oral health and quality of life (25,35). Most of the studies we selected are from Europe and Asia (Table 1).…”

“…Dental hygiene, among patients suffering from severe mental disorders, seems to be worse in PWS (19). The negative symptoms of schizophrenia are associated with a DMFT and a high CPI and are linked to less frequent dental visits (15,18,27,28,35).…”

“…We can therefore assume that the published data only partially reflects the oral health status of these populations. It's true, patients who do not agree to participate in these studies are likely to be unwilling to get a dental work up because of their poor oral health (19). Moreover, most of the studies are conducted with hospitalized patients while most PWS are in outpatient care (77): they only report on oral health for a portion of the population of PWS.…”

A Blended Learning Course Design in Clinical Pharmacology for Post-graduate Dental Students

“…Administration of local anaesthetics and the prescribing of analgesics and antibiotics are classical examples [1]. However, older patients are associated with polypharmacy, and knowledge of drug interactions and adverse effects that cause dental problems are important [2] Furthermore, there is an increased use of psychotropic drugs in the younger population, and some of these drugs affect oral hygiene, either directly or indirectly through behavioural effects [3] Moreover, nutritional and herbal medicine have been demonstrated to affect drugs sensitive to interactions: a relevant example is warfarin, with increased risk of bleeding [4]. Thus, continuous learning in pharmacology is important for dentists, but the optimal education strategy is yet to be defined.…”

Psykisk syke mangler rettssikkerhet

“…Personer med diagnosen schizofreni er mer utsatt for tannhelseproblemer (202). Dette gjelder spesielt manglende tenner og tenner med fyllinger (200).…”