Periodontal disease and its relationship with clinical and sociodemographic variables in adult patients treated in a service/teaching institution

Objective: To determine prevalence of periodontal disease and related clinical and sociodemographic factors. Material and methods: An observational, descriptive and retrospective study was undertaken. Criteria to select patients were as follows: ≥ 35 years of age, full clinical history and periodontal chart and a minimum of ten teeth present in the mouth. Clinical periodontal and sociodemographic variables were examined; periodontal diagnosis was established according to two classifi cation systems (AAP and CDC-AAP). χ2 was calculated in order to analyze differences among sociodemographic and clinical variables with respect to periodontitis severity. Median test was used for quantitative variables. Results: Periodontitis frequency was 67.2% (severe periodontitis 43.2%). Gingivitis frequency was 32.8%. In 155 cases there was concordance of two observers in cases of severe periodontitis. CDCAAP classifi cation established more cases of moderate periodontitis and only 47 cases in concordance with AAP system. Periodontitis patients exhibited greater bleeding upon probing, insertion loss and periodontal pockets (p < 0.001). Patients with periodontitis lost more teeth that patients with gingivitis. Periodontitis was more frequent in males than in females (p = 0.025). Patients with periodontitis exhibited lower educational levels, suffered systemic diseases, were addicted to tobacco and alcohol use and had encountered problems with their affiliation to social security services. Conclusions: Periodontitis frequency in studied population was high (60%), and found to be related to systemic diseases, tobacco use, affi liation to social security services and educational level. Periodontitis frequency was determined by used classifi cation system.