Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors of Tooth Wear

INTRODUCTION: Tooth wear is described as loss of hard tooth tissue with no occurrence of dental caries or trauma. Basic Erosive Wear Examination, a new scoring system, is a partial scoring system recording the most severely affected surface in a sextant and the cumulative score guides the management of the condition for the practitioner. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of tooth wear and its association with its risk factors like gender, oral hygiene, diet, general health and life style. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was done in 364 dental patients of Kathmandu Medical College. A questionnaire was filled by interview and Basic Erosive Wear Examination was done. The data so collected were entered in Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Descriptive statistical analysis and Chi-square tests were done at confidence interval of 95% and statistical significance was set at P=0.05. RESULTS: The prevalence of tooth wear was 218 (60.1%) with no significant gender difference. A significant association was observed between tooth wear and age group (P<0.01), duration of brushing (P=0.05), method of brushing (P<0.01), swishing of soft drinks before swallowing (P<0.01) and tobacco chewing (P=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of tooth wear in the study population was high.