Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the level of awareness about knowledge and practices of complete denture hygiene in a tertiary care dental hospital of Lahore.
Materials and Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Prosthodontics, Punjab Dental Hospital/deMontmorency College of Dentistry, Lahore. A total of 150 patients were included in the study. All patients were selected randomly who were seeking treatment from this tertiary care dental hospital. The questionnaire included data about gender, age, duration of prosthesis use, cleaning methods and materials etc. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. Chi-square test of significance was applied for statistical analysis with a significance level of 5% (p≤0.05).
Results: The results showed that 49 (32.7%) subjects were wearing the same prosthesis for more than 5 years. Data analysis showed that 44 out of 150 subjects (29.3%) normally slept with their prosthesis in mouth. 86 patients (57.3%) told that they were given only verbal instructions about methods of cleaning while 64 (42.7%) were not even told or shown any method of cleaning of denture by dentist. It was observed that 63 individuals (42%) believe that denture can last from 5-10 years.
Conclusions: Within the limitations of this study, it was concluded that complete denture wearers had limited awareness of denture hygiene and oral care despite using dentures for long time.
Key words: Complete denture, Oral hygiene, Denture cleansing, Dental care
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