The level of sanitary and hygienic knowledge on oral hygiene in teenagers and young adults who smoke

Abstract

Numerous studies in recent years have shown that the prevalence of dental disease, periodontal tissue and dental anomalies remains high among children, despite the development and implementation of new prevention and treatment regimens. Thus, the prevalence of dental caries in children in the period of temporary occlusion reaches 80–90%, in the period of permanent occlusion — 70–80%. The prevalence of chronic catarrhal gingivitis in children 12–15 years of age is 70–80%, reaching 95–98% in some regions, and localized and generalized periodontitis – 4.1–16.4%. It is known that the pathogenesis of dental diseases is closely related to the presence of a bad habit — smoking, mostly there is a strict correlation between the intensity and experience of smoking and the emergence and development of pathological changes in various organs and systems, including the oral cavity. Maintaining proper oral hygiene is an important factor influencing the occurrence of periodontal disease. It is known that the formation of oral care skills is formed in childhood, so the study of oral hygiene and the level of hygienic knowledge in adolescents with healthy periodontitis and catarrhal gingivitis in order to further develop a scheme of preventive measures remains one of the most important areas of pediatric dentistry.

Purpose — to study the level of hygienic oral care and knowledge in teenagers and young adults who smoke.

Materials and methods. The level of knowledge on the observance of individual oral hygiene in 87 people aged 15 to 24 years was studied. The main group included 40 adolescents and young people who smoked, in the comparison group we included 47 people of the same age without a bad habit of smoking.

Results. It was found that the majority of all respondents have information on how to properly care for the hygiene of RP, respectively 67.54±3.75% — in the main group, 72.78±4.81% — in the comparison group. However, not all respondents have the full amount of information, as indicated by 23.43±7.51% of adolescents and young people in the main group and 17.86±6.42%. In addition, the individual assessment of their own oral care skills according to the respondents revealed that not all respondents regularly oral care. In the main group only 59.56±4.61% indicated regular oral care, which was 1.4 times less than in the comparison group 81.42±5.73% (p<0.001).

Conclusions. It is necessary to conduct additional hygienic training, mandatory reinformation on the risks of dental diseases, in order to form a system of sustainable understanding and awareness of the need for adolescents and young people to observe individual oral hygiene. Particular attention should be paid to aspects of the emergence and rooting of bad habits, namely the bad habit of smoking, both traditional and alternative types of smoking, which adversely affects somatic and dental health, because it is known that without smoking it is impossible to achieve sustainable and long-term results of treatment and prevention measures.

The research was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki declaration. The study protocol was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of all participating institution. The informed consent of the patient was obtained for conducting the studies.

No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.