Barriers to Dentist in Management of Patients with Special Health Care Needs

Background: Special health care needs include one of the physical, behavioural, developmental, sensory, mental, cognitive or emotional impairment or generally a restraining condition that often requires medical management, health care intervention, along with that it also requires use of specialized services or programs. This condition is considered as developmental, congenital, or it may also be acquired through many reasons such as disease, trauma, or any of the environmental cause. The condition may compel limitations in doing daily self-maintenance activities or extensive limitations in a most of the life activity. Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the barriers to dentist in management of patients with special health care needs. Methods: A self-administered questionnaire including 10 questions was developed and made available in paper formats. The questionnaire was circulated among 100 randomly selected dental practitioners from various parts of the Nagpur region. Results: The most common type of disabilities of children with special needs patients that mostly visited the dental clinic included physical disability (46%) and the preferred way of treatment of children with special healthcare was non pharmacological behaviour management technique (77%). Majority of dentists relied mainly upon general anaesthesia (65.7%) as the adjunct for behaviour management as compared to conscious sedation Conclusion: Training programs should be conducted regarding special needs dentistry which will improve the quality of patient care. The parents as well as the caregivers and the teachers of these children should be efficiently educated and also they must be trained regarding the dental problems, oral hygiene instructions and dietary practice of these children. They must also be trained regarding prevention of or facial trauma and first aid of special health care children.