Dental Ages of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder versus Healthy Children Measured using Different Dental Age Estimation Methods: A Retrospective Observational Study

Abstract

Introduction: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurobehavioural disorder that is common in childhood and can lead to serious impairment in quality of life if, not treated. The dental development of children with ADHD may also be affected due to the effects of the medications they use or as a result of delayed growth and deficient development caused by the disorder. Aim: To evaluate the dental development of children with ADHD and healthy children using three different dental age estimation methods. Materials and Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted at Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University Paediatric Dentistry Clinic, Turkey for 6 months. The records of patients with ADHD and healthy subjects were retrospectively reviewed between January 2017 and January 2021. Two clinicians evaluated radiographs of ADHD and healthy patients using three different dental age estimation methods. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test assessed the difference between three or more independent groups with normal distribution. The Post-hoc Bonferroni test determined the group or groups that created the difference. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: No statistically significant differences were obtained between the three different dental age calculation methods for the ADHD group and the control group (p>0.05). Conclusion: The dental ages of patients with ADHD were similar to their chronological ages and there was no delay due to the effect of the disease or the medications used in treatment. Although there was no statistically significant difference between all three methods in the Turkish population, Cameriere’s method underestimated chronological age, while Demirjian’s method tends to overestimate it.

Keywords

• age determination
• forensic dentistry
• paediatric dentistry
• willems method