The prevalence of tooth wear and its severity among patients who attended a tertiary healthcare institution in an urban centre in lagos, Nigeria

Abstract Aim: To assess the prevalence of types of tooth wear and identify the distribution and severity of the disease in the jaws, at the tertiary healthcare institution in an urban centre in Lagos, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study involving 239 consenting participants. Socio-demographic information was collected using validated self-administered questionnaire. Clinical assessment of tooth wear was done using the tooth wear index developed by Smith and Knight. All participants were categorize into mild tooth wear group, moderate tooth wear group and severe tooth wear group, based on individual tooth wear surface scores. All data collected were entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Armonk, New York, USA) spreadsheet Version 26 for analysis. Descriptive statistics of frequency and percentage were used. Chi square test and fisher exact test were used to test for association. The statistical significance was set at P<0.05. Results: Of the 239 participants, tooth wear occurred more in males 125(52.3%) than females 114 (47.7%). The difference was not statistically significant. Tooth wear occurred in 69.9% (167) of the participants older than 50years old and affected 72(30.1%) of those younger than 50years old. Attrition (48.5%) was the most prevalent of all tooth wear, followed by combined attrition/abrasion (20.5%) and the least was abfraction (3.3%). This occurred more in the maxilla than mandible. With respect to severity of tooth wear on the maxilla, the mild, the moderate and the severe tooth wear scores were highest for molars 166(39.6%), 335(48.8%) and 72(59.0%) respectively. As for the mandible, the mild tooth wear score was the highest for incisors while the moderate and the severe tooth wear scores were highest for molars 314(53.1%) and 34(55.7) respectively. Conclusion: Attrition was the most prevalent tooth wear, followed by combined attrition/abrasion and the least was abfraction. Molars were the most affected in the maxilla and the least were canines. The moderate tooth wear was the most common in relation to both upper and lower jaws. It occurred more on the maxilla, affecting mostly molars followed by premolars, incisors and canines. The mild tooth wear score occurred more in the mandibular teeth with incisors having the highest score. The severe tooth wear score affected the least number of teeth and it occurred more in maxilla with molar scoring the highest.