TUSDM has developed a Victims of Violence Intervention Program (VVIP) including a training curriculum for student dentists, outcomes assessment and clinical care to help DV survivors to improve their self-esteem and overall well-being.
Objective: The purpose of this pilot study was to assess the dental care needs of the patients who were referred to TUSDM with a history of DV.
Methods: A retrospective chart review study included 48 patient charts with history of DV. These charts were recorded by 60 pre-/post-doctoral students. These patients were referred to seek free dental treatment at TUSDM by 12 DV shelters, community centers and transitional houses in Massachusetts. Descriptive analyses were performed with SPSS version 11.0 on the electronic database.
Results: 48 DV patients received dental treatment at TUSDM in the pre-doc and post-doc clinics between May 2003-October 2003. The descriptive analysis of the chart review indicated a distribution of chief complaint, oral/medical findings, treatments rendered for this population. The most frequent treatments that were planned are: A-Restorative (50%), B- Prosthodontics (both fixed and removable) (24%) C- Oral & Maxilla Facial Surgery (19%), D-Endodontics (6%), and, E-Other (adjunct treatments) (2%).
Conclusions: The preliminary descriptive study indicated no traits of acute trauma but mostly restorative needs for these patients. We continue our investigation with the assessment of Oral Quality of Life and General Quality of Life of 200 DV patients between March 2004 and December 2004.