Oral health needs of athletes with intellectual disability in Eastern Europe: Poland, Romania and Slovenia

Abstract

Analysis of the results obtained following screening showed comparable oral health needs of athletes with intellectual disability among countries. Exploration of the oral health systems of the countries revealed similar significant co-payments and lack of incentive for dentists to treat patients with special needs. The results from Romania, Poland and Slovenia demonstrated the need for a structured system in which a special population is a target for oral-health-related education programmes and system-included preventive, restorative and maintenance interventions.

Prevalence of edentulism among adults with intellectual disabilities: A narrative review informed by systematic review principles

“…However, the prevalence across the studies ranged from 0% to 50%. On average (unweighted mean), 1.6% of participants in reported Special Olympics Special Smiles (SOSS) samples were edentulous, compared to 20.2% of institutional samples and 17.6% of database samples . By comparison, 10.9% of the patient‐cohort sample of Morgan et al .’s was edentulous, a group who by definition attended the dentist.…”

Global prevalence of dental caries in athletes with intellectual disabilities: An epidemiological systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Through the quality assessment (Table ), the score ranged from 4 to 7 out of 10 possible points. Of the 16 studies that underwent a risk of bias assessment, eight (50%) were considered to have a moderate risk of bias and eight (50%) were considered to have a high risk of bias …”

“…A population sample of 35,732 individuals was enrolled in this review, ranging from 160 to 14,319 athletes. Thirteen articles were cross‐sectional studies, another study was a retrospective, one study did not report the design, and Feldman et al . was a pilot study.…”

“…Only five studies presented a true or close representation of the group of athletes with intellectual disabilities . As the sample, in some studies, is not representative to the group of athletes with intellectual disabilities, the prevalence data may have been underestimated or overestimated.…”

“…People with intellectual disabilities are more likely to have poor oral hygiene and, consequently, dental caries than people without this condition . Data from the literature show that the prevalence of dental caries in athletes with intellectual disabilities varies widely . This study provides a unique set of data that classifies the quality of studies and describes the overall prevalence of dental caries among athletes with special needs.…”