Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors of Periodontal Disease among Adults Attending Dental Department in Rwanda Military Hospital (Rwanda): A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Periodontal disease is one of the most widespread bacterial diseases of mankindand is estimated to affect 10-15% of the population. Data indicate that the prevalence of periodontal disease is very high particularly in several African countries affecting all age groups. The purpose of the present investigation was to study the prevalence of periodontal disease among 1282(15-65 years) old individuals attending the Department of Dentistry of the Rwanda Military Hospital (RMH) from July to December 2013. In addition, an attempt is made to identify possible risk factors of periodontal disease in this population. Methods: The study included all patients aged 15-65 years old. This was a retrospective crosssectional study where by we abstracted data from medical files of the patients and then completed a questionnaire designed for each patient. Periodontal status was assessed using the
epidemiological part of the Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPITN), the Community Periodontal Index (CPI) with 10 index teeth (17, 16, 11, 26, 27, 47, 46, 31, 36, 37) and 6 sextants (17-14, 13-23, 24-27, 38-34, 33-43, 44-47) per individual, four indicators of periodontal status were applied. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 20. Results: Of the 1282 patients enrolled in the study, 49.5% were detected with calculus. Shallow pockets (4-5 mm) were present in 26.1%, and 13.6% had deep pockets (>5 mm), 9.3% had bleeding, and only 1.5% were healthy. After multiple regression analysis and adjustment for potential confounders, our findings indicated that the age, a low level of education, frequency of tooth brushing, attending dental clinic only in an emergency, diabetes mellitus, HIV/AIDS, and smoking (p<0.01) were all statistically associated with the dependent variable “periodontal
disease”. Conclusion: The results demonstrate that the vast majority of patients attending the Department of Dentistry at RMH in Rwanda had different degrees of periodontal infection and demonstrates for the first time high prevalence of periodontal status and associated risk factors in an adult cohort. Our findings are of major public health significance and needs urgent attention and also calls for further population-based research studies.