Assessment of dental pain in children with intellectual disability using the dental discomfort questionnaire

Objective: This study aimed to compare the Dental Discomfort Questionnaire (DDQ) scores in children with and without intellectual disability (ID) and to measure correlation between the total DDQ and the Decayed, Missing, and Filled Teeth (DMFT/dmft) scores, as well as the condition of the tooth causing pain. Method: This cross-sectional study included 81 children with normal intellectual development who attended the Departments of Pediatric Dentistry at two Turkish Universities and 80 children with different levels of intellectual disability who reported dental pain in special education centers. The 12-question DDQ (Turkish version) was applied to the parents of the patients with their consent. The relationship of the DDQ scores with tha of the DMFT/dmft, dental status, and demographic data was evaluated. Results: When the DDQ scores of children with intellectual disabilities were evaluated, it was found that the majority of the answers given to the questions were statistically similar (p < 0.05) to those of children with normal cognitive level. In the questions in which “pain when eating and brushing teeth” was evaluated, a higher score was obtained, which led to an increase in the total DDQ score (p < 0.001). There was a statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of the distribution of dental conditions (p < 0.001). When compared to the normal cognitive group, patients with mild and severe intellectual disabilities had more deep dentin caries, thoughy, frequent periapical abscess was less common in those groups (p < 0.001 and p = 0.022). There was no statistically significant relationship between DMFTscores. Conclusion: The DDQ was found to be a descriptive, functional, and easy-to-use questionnaire for children with intellectual disabilitiesin terms of detecting the presence of dental pain. No correlation was found between DMFT/dmft, dental status and DDQ scores.