Are Oral Health Conditions Associated With Schoolchildren’s Performance And School Attendance ?

INTRODUCTION: To examine the relationship between children's oral health-related quality of life and academic achievement and school attendance.

METHODS: Data was gathered from the answers of 150 children aged 7-12 years to the structured questionnaire. Demographic data, children's/parents’ oral health conditions, academic performance/school absenteeism of the children, and intraoral examination outcomes were recorded in the structured questionnaire. Sillness & Löe plaque index was used to assess the dental plaque scores and DMFT/DMFS, dfmt/dfms indices according to WHO criteria were used to determine the dental caries scores.


RESULTS: The mean age of the 150 pediatric patients (72 girls (48%) and 78 boys (52%)) were 9.23 ± 1.44 years. Due to dental care-related issues, 82% of schoolchildren missed less than two weeks, and 18% missed more than two weeks. Furthermore, 21% of these missed days were related to toothache or infections, and 34% were due to going to a dental treatment appointment. The association between nail biting and hard object biting and school achievement was shown to be statistically significant (p=0.02 and p=0.03, respectively). According to the results of the present study, it was determined that school absenteeism was higher in children who needed dental treatment. It was also observed that there was a negative correlation between school absenteeism and academic success (p=0.01).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Dental problems can cause school-age children to be absent from school and affect their school performance negatively.