Socioeconomic Status and Dental Wear --- A correlation

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate an association of dental wear among different socio economic groups Methodology: It was a cross sectional study conducted in dental OPD of Dow University of Health Sciences. A custom design questionnaire was developed to assess the tooth wear among different social classes by questions directly and indirectly related to dental wear. Sample size was calculated via software OPEN API, and considering patient turnover in opd over a 10 months' period. Sample size was 400. Study was conducted during the period of March 2016 to Jan 2017. Socioeconomic groups were divided into Upper, Middle and Lower class. Data was analyzed through SPSS Ver 21. Results:Results showed Poor socioeconomic group to be the most effected by tooth wear, except for chewing habits which were almost same among all social classes. Possible reasons include lack of awareness, knowledge and education regarding predisposing factors for tooth wear Conclusion: Current data evaluating SES with tooth wear is lacking. Many confounding variables were overlooked in present study and can be studied further in finding association between SES and tooth wear