Denture hygiene habit and denture care practice in complete denture wearing patients visiting a dental college

Abstract

Introduction: After wearing a complete denture, the patient most care for his/her denture and most maintain a good hygiene habit for long term use of the prosthesis. Even after giving denture care instructions at the denture delivery appointment many patients may not fully understand the instructions. This study was performed to assess the denture hygiene habit and denture care procedure being undertaken by complete denture patients coming for treatment in a private dental college.

Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 140 complete denture wearing patients visiting Department of Prosthodontics, Chitwan Medical College from Sep 2021 to Mar 2022. A questionnaire was prepared and used to collect data which included various questions regarding denture hygiene and denture care being undertaken by patients. Descriptive statistical analysis (frequency and percentage) was performed on the data collected by using SPSS Statistical Software Package (version 21.0).

Results : A total of 140 responses were included in this study. Out of the patients who responded 52.85% (N=74) were wearing the same denture for less than 5 yrs while 27.85% (N=39) were wearing the denture for more than 5 yrs. Most of them i.e., 73.5% were removing the prosthesis at night time and 61.4% were keeping the denture inside water when removing at night. Out of the participants, 81.42% were cleaning the prosthesis outside of mouth while 18.5% were cleaning the denture both inside and outside of the mouth. All of them were using a toothbrush to clean the denture. More than half (52.14%) of the participants didn’t know for how long they should use complete denture.

Conclusion: From the responses obtained in this study it can be concluded that the complete denture wearing patients visiting Chitwan Medical College have fair denture hygiene habits as well as fair knowledge on denture care practice.