Replacement of Missing Teeth among Patients – Factors Determining The Attitude

Abstract

Background: Replacement of missing teeth is important since it restores the functional and/or esthetics component. Among the options, patient's attitude generally plays an important role in selecting the type of prosthesis. Aim and Objectives: To highlight the factors determining the attitude of patients for replacement of missing teeth reporting to a dental college in Puducherry, India. Materials and Methods: A ten-item, closed-ended questionnaire was used to record the responses of 50 patients followed by a clinical examination Existing and missing teeth were charted by a single trained investigator. Collected data were analyzed using chi-square test at a significance level of 0.05. Result: The age of the subjects ranged from 25 years to 67 years with more subjects in range of 25-44 years. Among the study subjects 64 percent of the subjects belonged to class II [upper middle] socioeconomic status; 46 percent reported missing posterior teeth; 36 percent cited lack of knowledge and 24 percent reported that financial constraints were the main reasons for not replacing their missing teeth. Dental caries and periodontal diseases were found to be the most common cause for tooth loss. Subjects with different levels of socioeconomic status reported different reasons for not replacing extracted teeth, and these differences were not statistically significant (x2=9.27, p>0.05, NS). Conclusion: The findings indicate that awareness needs to be improved on the importance of both functional and esthetic aspects of teeth, since more importance was given to functional rather than esthetics component.