Oral health in and dental care for children and adolescents with disabilities

Children and adolescents with long-term illness or disability may have higher risk for oral problems and may need increased support in prevention and care. A diagnosis, however, does not reveal information about the individual’s functioning. WHO’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – children and youth version (ICF-CY) allows comparison of health conditions of different etiology and can present an individual’s health profile from a bio-psycho-social perspective. The overall aim of the project is to, from a bio-psycho-social perspective, investigate factors related to oral health and dental care in children with disabilities with the hypotheses that medical diagnoses is more weakly related to oral health and dental care than functioning and that functioning has stronger relation to mode of dental care than to oral health.