A Study on the Oral Health Awareness and Attitude of Guardians of the Disabled

초록

The purpose of this study was to examine the oral health awareness of disabled people's guardians in an effort to help promote the oral health of the disabled, as those people were bound to rely on their guardians for oral health care due to their own poor oral health care skills. The subjects in this study were the guardians of students in Ohseong School and Cheonghae School that were respectively located in Gang- neung and Sokcho, Gangweon province. After a survey was conducted from October 6 to 20, 2008, the answer sheets from 255 respondents were gathered, and 214 answer sheets were analyzed with SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) WIN 13.0 program except incomplete ones. Statistical data on frequency and percentage were obtained to find out their general characteristics, and x2(Chi-square) test and frequency analysis were utilized to check into the oral health awareness of the guardians, their use of dental treatment and the oral health care attitude of the disabled students. The findings of the study were as follows: 92.1 percent of the guardians investigated had an interest in the oral health of the disabled, and 52.8 percent considered them to be in a bad oral health. The majority that accounted for 93.5 percent had never received oral health education for the disabled. They were most interested in the dental caries treatment of the disabled and preferred a medical institution adjacent to their residences. They complained of expensive treatment fee(22.4%), and they also complained that some medical institutions rejected to treat disabled people because of prejudice against them. Since the oral health awareness of guardians who are closely linked to disabled people has a huge impact on the dental care of the disabled, disabled people and their guardians should continue to be motivated to wake up to the importance of oral health, and institutional measures should be taken to let them receive oral health education without any difficulties. And oral health education experts should be nurtured.

키워드