Children With Heart Problems Visit the Dentist Less Often
May 6, 2009

by Nancy Volkers
InteliHealth News Service

INTELIHEALTH - Children with heart disease are less likely to visit the dentist, a small study concludes. The children in the study had congenital heart disease. This means they were born with their heart problems.

Researchers compared 43 children with heart disease to 43 healthy children. Their ages ranged from 1 to nearly 6 years old.

Tooth decay was slightly more common in the children with heart disease. About 17% of the children with heart disease had tooth decay. About 13% of the healthy children had tooth decay.

But nearly half of the heart disease group had never been to the dentist, compared with about one-third of the healthy group. Compared with parents of healthy kids, parents of children with heart disease were more likely to:

• Be upset and feel guilty about their children's oral health problems
• Think that dental problems, or dental visits, bothered their children

Parents of children with heart disease were less likely to know whether dental health affected heart health. About 1 in 5 of these parents was unsure about this health connection. About 1 in 10 parents of healthy children was unsure.

The researchers are from The Ohio State University College of Dentistry and Nationwide Children's Hospital. Both are in Columbus, Ohio. The study appears in the April 14 issue of the journal Cardiology in the Young.