Oral Characteristics of Maltreated or Neglected Children

Objectives: Child maltreatment, including abuse and neglect, remains a tragic reality in our society. The purpose of this study was to assess the dental characteristics of maltreated children.
Methods: A total of 143 children (Mean age,10.6±3.7years) who were staying in a Child Consultation Center in Niigata City were surveyed. After classifying the subjects into five groups according to age (3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14, 15-17 years), the following oral care data from the maltreated children was compared with those from both children in Niigata Prefecture and children in Japan as a whole: mean decayed or filled teeth (dft) (3–5); decayed, missing, or filled teeth (DMFT) (6–17); periodontal condition.
Results: Mean numbers of decayed teeth in 12–14-year-olds were 2.54, 0.21, and 0.53 for maltreated, Niigata and Japanese children, respectively. The mean number of DMFT in 12–14-year-old maltreated children was 3.36, which was higher than that in 12–14-year-olds in both Niigata (0.83) and Japan as a whole (1.50). Similar tendencies were seen in the other age groups. The differences between maltreated and Niigata children and between maltreated and Japanese children were both statistically significant (p<0.001). The percentage of maltreated children (12-14 years old) with gingivitis was 14.3%, which was significantly higher than the average in Niigata Prefecture (3.0%) (p<0.001). All differences between maltreated and Niigata children or between maltreated and Japanese children were statistically significant (p<0.001).
Conclusions: Our results suggest that, due to a lack of daily oral care, the combined index of dental caries and periodontal disease would be a reasonable indicator for recognizing maltreated children. Guardians of maltreated children, including family and staff members at related institutions, should provide support for daily oral care. Future study of a larger sample to address multidimensional elements of maltreated children is needed.