PREVALENCE OF MEDICALLY COMPROMISED PATIENTS VISITING CLINICS OF COLLEGE OF DENTISTRY AT KING SAUD UNIVERSITY

*Fahad Saleh Al Sweleh, Zaid Mohammed Aldhuayan, Nasser Abdulrahman Alsolaihim and
Hamed Sallom Alshamrani

ABSTRACT

Background: Knowledge of systemic conditions is essential for successful dental management therefore impaired health status of medically compromised patients works as alarm for dentist. Objective: To determine the prevalence of various medical conditions among patients visiting clinics of the College of Dentistry at King Saud University (KSU). Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective study, conducted in College of Dentistry at KSU, Riyadh. This study included inspection of files of all the patient seeking dental treatment in the clinics during 5 years period from June 2009 to June 2014. Files with incomplete personal and medical information or non-legible record were excluded from the study. Systemic sampling technique was used to review approximately (15436) files. The collected data were entered into SPSS Version 20. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, means and standard deviations) were generated. Proportional test between gender was used. P value less than 0.05 was considered as level of significant. Results: Data were obtained from 15436 patients’ file (8125 completed files; 5284(65%) male; 2841(35%) female). About 1633 (20.1%) of the patients had at least one medical condition. The most common diseases were diabetes mellitus 422(5.2%), hypertension 343(4.2%), asthma 221(2.7%), anemia 122(1.5%), bleeding tendency 50(0.6%) and hypothyroidism 45(0.6%). There were statistically significant differences between male and female in hypertension disease (male 3.6%; female 5.4%, p=0.00); anemia disease (male 0.9%, female 2.6%, p=0.00); hematological disease (male 0.1%, female 0.3%, p=0.03); hepatitis (male 0.3%, female 0.1%, p=0.03); syphilis disease (male 0.2%, female 0.0%, p=0.03); hypothyroidism (male 0.0%, female 1.5%, p=0.00); other thyroid disease (male 0.0%, female 0.4%, p=0.00); penicillin allergy (male 0.3%, female 0.9%, p=0.00). Conclusion: Diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and asthma were most prevalent medical conditions among dental patients. Therefore, documenting the full medical history and clinical examinations are necessary before and after dental treatment.

Keywords: Dental patients; medically compromised; dental clinics; diabetes mellitus; hypertension; asthma.