Knowledge of Oral Hygiene among Hemophilic Patients Referred to Iranian Hemophilia Society

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Hemophilic patients are faced with poor oral hygiene due to concerns about their dental care. The present study assessed the knowledge of hemophilic patients about oral hygiene and the effect of oral hygiene instruction in patients referred to Iranian Hemophilia Society. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 30 hemophilic patients randomly selected from volunteer patients referred to Iran Hemophilia Center. The study was performed by means of a questionnaire submitted to subjects before and after the instructional brochure submission. The questionnaire included demographic data and items regarding hemophilia and oral hygiene. Data was analyzed with McNemar test and paired t-test. RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 21 years; 27 (90%) were males and 3 ones (10%) were females. They were mostly A hemophilia infected. Most patients enjoyed fair knowledge of oral hygiene. Changes in knowledge after reading the bro-chure were significant regarding the appropriate time to replace the toothbrush (P < 0.01), necessary visits for tooth examina-tions (P < 0.04), adjunctive methods of caries prevention (P < 0.001) and factors related to bleeding (P < 0.01); other factors improved slightly without significant changes. CONCLUSION: The knowledge of hemophilic patients was fair regarding oral hygiene while some relevant factors improved after instructions. However, more instruction is needed in order to attain more improvement in some behaviors.