Barriers to Professional Dental Care among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Alshihri, Abdulmonem A.; Al-Askar, Mansour H.; Aldossary, Mohammed S.

doi:10.1007/s10803-020-04759-y

Original Paper
Published: 21 October 2020

Barriers to Professional Dental Care among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders volume 51, pages 2988–2994 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Aims were to: (1) investigate the parental difficulties toward their ASD children dental care and, (2) analyze factors influencing their access to such services. Questionnaires were completed by 142 mothers of ASD children. Children aged between 2.5 and 14 years old, with 3.9:1 male to female ratio. 68.3% perceived difficulties in finding dental care. Most barriers were: Cost (75.4%), finding a dentist to treat ASD child (74.6%), and behavior of their ASD child (45.1%). There was no difference among age and “difficulty finding dental care” (p = 0.429). Having medical insurance and previous bad experience showed significant effects on the difficulty in finding dental care (p < 0.05). Children with ASD and their parents encounter various barriers to dental services.

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Change history

27 November 2020
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04791-y

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Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the Research Center and the Deanship of Scientific Research at the College of Dentistry, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for their support to make this research project possible.

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Affiliations

Department of Prosthetic Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Abdulmonem A. Alshihri
Department of Periodontics and Community Dentistry, College of Dentistry, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Mansour H. Al-Askar
General Directorate of Dentistry, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Mohammed S. Aldossary

Authors

Abdulmonem A. Alshihri
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Mansour H. Al-Askar
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Mohammed S. Aldossary
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Contributions

AAA contributed to conception and design; MHA contributed to data acquisition and analysis; MSA contributed to design, data interpretation, and drafted the manuscript. All authors critically revised the manuscript and gave final approval of the work.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mohammed S. Aldossary.

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The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

Ethical approval was granted by the Ethical Committee at the Dental Department, Ministry of Health, Riyadh (MOH/DD/2019/83). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Alshihri, A.A., Al-Askar, M.H. & Aldossary, M.S. Barriers to Professional Dental Care among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 2988–2994 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04759-y

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Accepted: 12 October 2020
Published: 21 October 2020
Issue Date: August 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04759-y

Keywords

Autism spectrum disorder
Dental care
Dental health services
Health services accessibility
Pediatric dentistry