The Correlation between Oral Self-Harm and Ethnicity in Institutionalized Children

Abstract

Oral self-harm was described in institutionalized children who share a lack of emotional attention; frequently these children experience feelings such as neglect, loneliness, isolation or lack of connection with the world. The aim of our paper was to conduct a cross-sectional study in order to assess the prevalence of this behavior and its correlation with ethnicity among children from three institutions located in the central part of Romania. We examined 116 children from three ethnic groups, Romanians, Hungarians and local Roma population aged between 10–14 years old. The oral soft tissues were evaluated by one dentist who recorded the lesions of lips, buccal mucosa, commissures and tongue; data were statistically analyzed at a level of significance of p < 0.05. We found oral self-harm lesions in 18.1% participants, with statistically significant higher odds in girls (p = 0.03). The results showed an association between ethnicity and the development of these lesions (Chi-square p = 0.04). The most frequent lesions were located at oral commissures (35.48%), buccal mucosa (29.03%) and upper lip (19.36%). Oral self-harm lesions have a high incidence among institutionalized children in Romania. Identification of these cases in early stages is important, as these conditions are known to be aggravated during adolescence and adulthood.