escaping output in CodeIgniter

Filter Input, Escape Output.

After filtering input, I am using html_escape function to escape database output before displaying it in the browser.

$query = $this->db->query($sentstring); //returns list of users

$data['user'] = html_escape($query->result());

Now result() returns an array of objects and html_escape expects a string. So I am getting the error 

Message: htmlspecialchars() expects parameter 1 to be string, object given

Filename: core/Common.php

How do  resolve this issue? Also is my method of escaping output s proper way?