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Access to Dental Care for a Selected Group of Children and Adolescents with ASD

Objectives: 1) to determine if children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) encounter difficulties accessing dental, 2) to identify barriers that diminish access to dental care for this population. Methods: This descriptive study is based on a web-survey conducted at the Geneva Centre for Autism in Toronto between November 2008 and March 2009. Forty-nine multiple choice questions including open-ended fields were developed. Parents of children with ASD (ages 5–18) completed the survey. Results: The majority of participants visited a dentist regularly (71%) and had private dental insurance (64%). Parents/caregivers were more likely to have difficulties finding a dentist as unmarried parents (OR=3.7, P=0.075) or when their level of education was high school/less (OR=10.4, P=0.043). Conclusions: The majority of children/adolescents with ASD had access to dental care. Difficulties accessing dental care were related to family structure, parents’ education and their perception of dentists’ knowledge of ASD.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/24524
Date21 July 2010
CreatorsAbbasnezhad-Ghadi, Banafsheh
ContributorsLawrence, Herenia P.
Source SetsUniversity of Toronto
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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