Oral health status and subjective complaint of oral dryness of methadone user at Jakarta Drug Dependence Hospital-Indonesia

There is shortage of data on the oral health status of former heroin users who are currently on treatment in Indonesia. To address this limitation, the aim of the present study was to investigate and analyze the oral health status and oral dryness complaint in former heroin users who are currently on methadone treatment at a hospital drug dependence in Jakarta. Subject included in the study were patients treated with methadone following heroin addiction. Oral health examination was performed with a dental explorer and dental inspection mirror. Xerostomic status was determined with Fox xerostomic inventory questionnaire. Additionally the decayed-missing-filling teeth (DMF-T) and oral hygiene index-simplified (OHI-S) were used. A total of 37 patients (33 male, 4 female) were included. The mean age was 38.3, ranging between 31 and 53 years old. Mean number of DMF-T were: decayed 3.54 ± 3.22 (SD); missing 11.62 ± 8.84 (SD); filling 0.12 ± 0.73 (SD). The mean score of OHIS-S was 2.20±0.93 (SD). We observed that 70.3% of methadone users reported no xerostomia vs. 29.7% of users. Oral health status in former heroin users currently on methadone treatment was poor, while xerostomia was found in low number among methadone users.