Oral Prosthesis Hygiene, Cleaning Habits and Oral Tissue Conditions among Removable Oral Prosthesis Wearers, attending at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, Moshi, Tanzania

Abstract

Background: Maintaining good oral health and extending the lifespan of the prosthesis require effective and routine cleaning procedures for complete and partial removable appliances. Cleaning removable oral prostheses should be done every day to remove bacteria plaque that has built up and prevent infections like Candida albicans stomatitis. Patients with affected prostheses must practice good oral hygiene for the rest of their lives. This study aims to assess prosthesis hygiene, cleaning habits and oral tissue conditions among removable oral prosthesis wearers attending at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, Moshi, Tanzania.

Methods:  A hospital based descriptive cross-sectional study, involving 200 patients attending dental clinic at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, Moshi, Tanzania. All eligible patients completed self-administered questionnaire consisting of a tool for the assessment of oral prosthesis hygiene, cleaning habits and oral tissue condition. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were then conducted using STATA software version 15.0.  A p-value <5% was used to determine statistical significance.

Results: The average age on participant profile was (SD) 57±17.4 with 56% of the patients being female. This study has revealed that majority had good denture hygiene accounting 44%. The findings also revealed that 49.5 %of patients over the age of 60 had poor hygiene habits, and 64.0% of study participants did not sleep with their dentures while 27.0%% cleaned them more than twice a day. Only 9.5% received annual examinations for their dentures, 25.95% exhibit a mild irritation on the denture's fit surface. The independent predictors for good oral hygiene were age, denture check-up habit, and frequency of denture cleaning including palatal erythema.

Conclusions: According to this study, removable denture hygiene was not favorable. Most patients sleep with their dentures in place, and the preferred cleaning technique is water and toothpaste (mechanical method). Therefore, dentists should instruct their patients how to care for their dentures in order to stop oral cavity infections.

Keywords: Prosthesis hygiene, denture cleaning frequency, oral mucosa lesion.