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. 2025 Apr 10;25(1):512.
doi: 10.1186/s12903-025-05543-z.

Real-world dental health of Ukrainian war refugee children and adolescents in Umbria, Italy: preliminary data

S Cianetti  1 , A Viarchi  1 , G Lombardo  1 , C T Truppa  2 , I Shubets  1 , D Cialfi  3 , A Mattei  3 , M Severino  1
Affiliations

Real-world dental health of Ukrainian war refugee children and adolescents in Umbria, Italy: preliminary data

S Cianetti et al. BMC Oral Health. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: More than two years of the Russian-Ukrainian war have resulted in widespread human and economic tragedy. This crisis also affects health status, including oral health.

Objective: To carry out an exploratory analysis on the extent of caries in Ukrainian war refugee children and adolescents, and in addition to determine whether there was a statistically significant association between caries and age, gender, periodontal health status (using the Periodontal Screening and Recording (PSR) index), self-reported socioeconomic status and Italian language speaking skills.

Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design, was conducted in Perugia, Italy at the University Dental Clinic (COU) between November 2023 and April 2024 and included 50 children and adolescents between 3 and 18 years old (mean age 9.2 SD 4.6) with Ukrainian citizenship who had left their home country due to the war. The visits were conducted in the presence of a cultural mediator. The visits consisted of two parts: the administration of questionnaires on socio-economic status and communication skills, followed by a dental examination. A logistic regression model was used to identify the factors independently associated (age, sex, PSR, socio-economic status and level of communication) with high DMFT/dmft values.

Results: The refugees' mean DMFT/dmft was 3.5 SD 2.5. The multivariate logistic regression model showed that increased PSR (OR 7.71, 95% CI 1.38-22.94, p = 0.020) and low communication (OR 6.09, 95% CI 1.34-27.69, p = 0.019) were independently associated with the risk of having a DMFT/dmft > 4.

Conclusions: The study findings were worrying in terms of the prevalence and severity of caries, especially in refugee children with a poor level of integration in the host country. This study with its preliminary data provides a starting point to reflect on the need for specific health policies adapted to a complex type of social vulnerability such as refugee children status.

Keywords: Barriers to dental treatment; Oral health status; Refugees; Ukraine.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the CER Umbria-Regional Ethics Committee of Umbria (4690/24, 20/03/2024). Informed consent was obtained from all subjects and/or their legal guardian(s). Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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