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Updated: May 17, 2026

Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Oral health status of women with high-risk pregnancies
Vlasta Merglova1, Hana Hecova, Jaroslava Stehlikova
1Dentistry Department, Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. merglovav@fnplzen.cz
Aim:
The aim of this study was to investigate the oral health status of women with high-risk pregnancies.
Methods:
A case-control study of 142 pregnant women was conducted. The case group included 81 pregnant women with high-risk pregnancies, while 61 women with normal pregnancies served as controls. The following variables were recorded for each woman: age, general health status, DMF, CPITN, and PBI index, amounts of Streptococcus mutans in the saliva and dental treatment needs. The Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test, t-test and chi-squared test were used for statistical analyses.
Results:
Statistically significant differences were detected between the PBI indices and dental treatment needs of the two groups. Out of the entire study cohort, 77% of the women in the case group and 52% of the women in the control group required dental treatment.
Conclusion:
In this study, women with complications during pregnancy had severe gingivitis and needed more frequent dental treatment than those in the control group.
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