A survey of complete denture patients experiencing difficulties with their prostheses.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to investigate the problems faced by patients having complete dentures and the cleanliness of dentures by the patients.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This cross-sectional study is done with a sample of 178 patients having complete prosthesis since 1 year. A self-administered structured questionnaire pretested through a pilot survey was used in the study. The data were analyzed using the SPSS version 16.0. The Student's t-test, ANOVA and post hoc test were used as test of significance.

RESULTS

Mastication discomfort and looseness of denture were the most common complaints followed by lack of retention (35.4%), bad breath (29.8%), tongue restriction (26.4%) and food accumulation (24.7%). There was a significant relationship of complaints with age groups (p=0.00).

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE

This study concluded that most of the patients were present with complaints due to dentures. So, dental professionals should pay serious attention to their patients for subjective acceptable result of the dentures and also advice them to properly maintain hygiene of dentures.