Presentations 2020: Ortho&Paeds

376 - ‘The Oral Hygiene Status of New Patients referred by Community Dentists for Orthodontic treatment.’

Ailish Williams Subiyya Alam-Sabah
Presented by: Ailish Williams
Community Dental Service CwmTaf

Introduction This retrospective audit was conducted to determine the number of new orthodontic patients being rejected for treatment, following observations made by the community dental service orthodontists, who noted a number of patients were not suitable for treatment as their oral hygiene (OH) was suboptimal to that required for the start of treatment. Methods The audit standard was set that 100% of patients referred for orthodontic treatment by community dental officers should have ‘good-excellent’ oral hygiene and should be caries free. The clinical notes of the two CDS orthodontists’ new patients’ clinics, between January 2019-July 2019, were assessed to determine the number of orthodontic patients that were being rejected for treatment because of poor OH. Patients referred for opinions on poor prognosis of first permanent molars and patients where there was no comment on their OH at the assessment were excluded from the data collected. Patients were then anonymised and their OH status was input onto an Excel spreadsheet, where they were placed in either ‘acceptable OH' or ‘poor OH’ group. Patients who had acceptable OH were included onto the orthodontic waiting list, whereas patients with poor OH were referred back to the referring CDS dentist for oral hygiene instructions. Results From the 1st of January-31st of July 2019, 139 consecutive new orthodontic patients were selected. Of these patients, 100 had acceptable OH, 39 had poor OH. The percentage of patients being rejected for orthodontic treatment was 28%. Conclusion Unfortunately only 72% of patients being referred have ‘good-excellent’ OH, with 28% being inappropriate for treatment at the time of the assessment. As a result, the CDS referring dentists have been advised not to refer patients with visible plaque on their teeth and who do not seem motivated and to reduce their recall to provide them with regular OH reviews until their OH is suitable for orthodontic treatment.
Consent Statement: There are no details on individual patients reported within the abstract.

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