Other
Emily Strunk, DDS (she/her/hers)
Pediatric Dental Resident
Texas A & M University -—Baylor College of Dentistry, Dallas, TX
Texas A&M School of Dentistry
dallas, Texas, United States
Carolyn Kerins, DDS, PhD
Associate Professor & Grad Program Director
Texas A&M School of Dentistry
Dallas, Texas, United States
Kathleen Pace, DDS
Faculty
Texas A&M College of Dentistry
Dallas, Texas, United States
Correlation Between Attrition and Obstructive Sleep Apnea Screening in Children
Strunk, M, Pace, K, Kerins CA, (Texas A&M University College of Dentistry,
Purpose: To determine if attrition of the dentition is a reliable clinical indicator of patients who should be screened for obstructive sleep apnea
Methods: This was a retrospective chart review of dental recall visits for patients followed at a private pediatric dental office. Variables collected included: patient’s age, level of attrition, and scoring on OSA screening forms to determine the correlation between tooth wear index and the need to be screening for OSA.
Results: A total of 73 subjects were reviewed. The age ranges of the subjects were from 3-7.9 with a mean age of 5.1. The Pearson correlation between OSA screening score and attrition index was 0.012 indicating no correlation. When the age was changed to 7 and up, the correlation coefficient increased to 0.388 indicating that there may be an increase in correlation with increasing age. However, neither were statistically significant. A Chi-squared analysis was done in SPSS to determine if there was a significant correlation between attrition index and scoring on the obstructive sleep apnea form. The correlation was not statistically significant (P – .303).
Conclusions: There was not a statistically significant correlation between tooth wear indices and OSA screening scoring in this sample of pediatric patients