The association between denture care and oral hygiene habits, oral hygiene knowledge and periodontal status of geriatric patients wearing removable partial dentures

PURPOSE: This study aims to evaluate the association of the denture care with oral hygiene habits, knowledge and periodontal status geriatric patients wearing removable partial denture (RPD) and to compare the relationship between denture cleaning and tooth brushing frequency. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In total, 553 participants wearing RPD for at least 6 months and aged 65–86 years were asked to complete a questionnaire following the clinical examination. Chisquare analysis and Fisher’s exact test utilized to analyze the data. RESULTS: A significant relationship was found between the frequency of smoking, denture age, overnight denture wearing, denture stomatitis and denture cleaning (p<0.05). 54.10% of the participants reporting that they did not have information about denture care had poor denture cleaning. Among patients brushing once per day, 26.34% had a good level of denture cleaning; whereas, this was 39.40% for those brushing three times in a day. CONCLUSION: The type of advice (verbal or written) and oral hygiene habits demonstrated a more significant impact on the cleaning level of dentures than the socioeconomic level, smoking, overnight use, denture age. The success of denture maintenance might depend on the patients’ knowledge of denture care and hygiene habits and geriatric patients’ motivation.