Role of Dental Discomfort Questionnaire-Based Approach in Recognition of Symptomatic Expressions Due to Dental Pain in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

AIM

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the Dental Discomfort Questionnaire (DDQ) could help to identify toothaches in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study involved sixty children between the age groups of 6-16 years, attending the day-care schools diagnosed with ASD. Five different groups of children were identified based on the presence of a toothache and/or carious teeth. The DDQ-8 was completed by parents and evaluated by a single examiner. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (SPSS version 17), and a correlation was observed between the total DDQ score and the decayed, missing, and filled teeth (dmft-DMFT) score.

RESULTS

Analysis of the data showed that DDQ-8 had a significant correlation with that of DMFT score in a group "with carious teeth but no toothache" ( = 0.497, = 0.019) and group "with carious teeth and a toothache" ( = 0.682 = 0.043). A group "without carious teeth where the parents were not sure whether or not the child had a toothache" had higher mean compared to other groups with DDQ-8 scores.

CONCLUSION

There was a significant difference in the total mean DDQ scores when they were compared with that of the control group. Children with high DDQ-8 often had a high DMFT/dmft score. A significant correlation was found when the total DDQ-8 scores were compared with that of the DMFT score.