Clinical Significance
Hands OnReporting dental neglect
Section snippets
Background
Children are widely agreed to have the right to be protected from all forms of negligence and enjoy the highest levels of health attainable. However, child maltreatment, which includes both abuse and neglect, remains a societal problem, with neglect the most common type of child abuse. Young children rely on the adults who care for them to maintain their oral health. Untreated dental disease can produce significant adverse effects on the child's health, well-being, and quality of life. Children
Methods
A search of 15 databases yielded nine studies that met the inclusion criteria, representing 1595 children.
Results
The various studies confirmed neglect in different ways, making a meta-analysis impossible to conduct. Five defined specific features, and the remaining studies noted evidence of psychological maltreatment, failure to thrive because of neglect, and confirmation by social services, including parental disclosure or independently witnessed behavior. The features of dentally neglected children most often found were failure to seek or delay in seeking dental treatment, failure to follow
Discussion
Dental professionals often do not raise concerns for dental neglect in children because they have not received training or guidance in identifying the problem, they fear the impact of such an action on their practice, they fear family violence against the dental team or the child, they want to avoid litigation, or they are uncertain that the case represents dental neglect. The current literature does not provide clear guidance to help most dental professionals in this area.
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Bhatia SK, Maguire SA, Chadwick BL, et al: Characteristics of child dental neglect: A systematic review. J Dent 42:229-239, 2014
Reprints available from SK Bhatia, Univ Dent Hosp, School of Dentistry, Cardiff Univ, Cardiff CF14 4EA, UK; e-mail: [email protected]