Self-assessed bleeding as an indicator of gingival health among 12-14-year-old children

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between self-assessed gingival bleeding (GB) and clinically diagnosed gingival health among 12-14-year-old school children. A study group (982) comprising of school children aged 12-14 years was chosen by a simple random method from the five geographical areas in Irbid Governate, Jordan. All children completed a questionnaire related to self-assessment of GB after brushing before they had a clinical examination for oral hygiene and gingival condition using the criteria of Silness & Löe plaque index (1964) and Löe and Silness gingival index (1963). The results showed that the proportions of children who had self-assessed or clinically assessed GB increased gradually from 12 to 14 years of age with no significant difference (P > 0.05). There were significantly higher proportions of boys than girls who had self-assessed or were clinically assessed GB (P=0.02, 0.001). The mean plaque (1.83 +/- 0.54) and gingival scores (1.90 +/- 0.59) of children who reported GB were significantly higher than parallel scores of children without GB (1.27 +/- 0.62, 1.23 +/- 0.59), respectively (P < 0.001). There was a moderate correlation (r=0.501) between self-assessed GB and gingival health. In conclusion, there was a positive correlation between self-assessed GB and gingival health of 12-14-year-old children. Therefore, this may be beneficial for monitoring gingival health in children of, at least, developing countries.