Interventions in improving the oral hygiene of visually impaired individuals: A systematic review

The deteriorated oral hygiene in visually impaired individuals has paved way for the emergence of different interventions for oral health promotion. This systematic review assessed the effectiveness of different interventions in improving the oral hygiene of visually impaired individuals. A search using PubMed, Cochrane Library, Science Direct, Wiley online and Scopus search engines published before September 2020 was carried out. Dental plaque, gingival status, oral hygiene status and improvement in knowledge status were assessed. The systematic review consisted of nine studies fulfilling the eligibility criteria and seven studies after checking for quality of evidence. The interventions significantly improved plaque scores, gingival and oral hygiene status, as well as the knowledge of visually impaired individuals. The combination of two or more interventions was reported to be better in improving oral health when compared with the individual interventional techniques for visually impaired individuals.