Oral Health Status in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Positive Patients Attending Port reitz Hospital

Purpose: The objective of this study was to determine the oral health status in HIV positive patients attending Port Reitz Hospital in Mombasa County.Methodology: The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional study design. Clients 18 years and above who are HIV positive at the comprehensive care clinic of the Port Reitz Hospital were the population under study. A total of 372 patients were interviewed. Clinical data was collected using a WHO oral health assessment questionnaire and observations on knowledge, attitudes and practice and social demographics were made using a second questionnaire. Data collected was cleaned and keyed into an MS Excel spread sheet then exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. The findings were presented using frequency tables, bar charts and pie charts. Measures of association were computed at the corresponding 95% confidence intervals.Findings: The prevalence of dental caries among patients at Port Reitz Hospital was 14.2% with the proportion experiencing - decay, missing and filled teeth due to caries being 11.1%, 7.1% and 9.1%, respectively. The DMFT index in this population was not significantly related to age, sex and ART status of the patients. Of the 368 patients, 39.3% had healthy teeth. Conversely, 5.8% had bleeding gums, 13.8% had calculus, 36.5% had pockets (4-5mm) and 0.2% had pockets (6 or more than 6mm). Findings indicated that 6.3% of the patients had access to information on HIV related oral diseases. With regard to knowledge on oral diseases, the three most commonly known oral disease related to HIV were bleeding gums (28.3%), cavities (17.0%) and ulcers (15.1%). 99.5% of patients in the study expressed a need for more information on oral diseases related to HIV. Most of the patients (98.9%) regarded treatment of oral diseases as important as treatment in other parts of the body. When asked about their practice, 63.6% 0f clients in the study said that they cleaned their teeth more than once a day using tooth brushes (96.3%).Contribution to practice and policy recommendation: The recommendation from the study is that oral health care and treatment should be included as part of comprehensive care for HIV patients. These patients should be given information on oral diseases related to HIV and oral health care and maintenance.