Dental conditions in a Swedish population aged 45-69 years. A questionnaire study.

A questionnaire study was performed on 3000 randomly sampled individuals aged 45-69 years living in Orebro county, Sweden. The response rate was almost 80%. The purpose was to describe dental conditions in this population, especially differences in dental conditions between various socioeconomic groups. Only 9% of the studied population were totally edentulous, and edentulousness was concentrated to the older age groups. Eighteen per cent of the population had all their teeth remaining. Removable dentures were worn by only 23% of the subjects. The results indicate further improvement of dental conditions in the age group 45-69 years in in Orebro county and presumably in the whole country. The results also indicate an improved gender equality with regard to dental status. On the other hand, socioeconomic inequalities were closely related to variations in dental conditions.