Prevalence of tooth wear among 16-year-old secondary school children in Kota Bharu, Kelantan

Tooth wear is the non-carious loss of tooth tissue due to attrition, erosion and/or abrasion. The amount of wear that accelerates physiological tooth wear is referred as pathological tooth wear. This study aims to determine the prevalence and mean scores according to mouth quadrant of raw tooth wear (RTW) and pathological tooth wear (PTW) and investigate sex association with PTW among 16-year-old secondary school children in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. This cross-sectional study involves 688 participants randomly selected from eight government secondary schools. The Smith and Knight Tooth Wear Index (TWI) was used. Data were analyzed using a simplified Microsoft Excel program developed based on the index to quantify PTW. Bar graphs were plotted to highlight the mean scores according to mouth quadrant. About 44% of participants were male and 56% were female. The prevalence of RTW and PTW among subjects was 100% and 20.1% respectively. It was found that 32.8% of tooth surfaces were affected with RTW and 0.7% of study subjects already had exposed dentine. The most affected quadrant for RTW and PTW was the upper and lower incisal quadrant respectively. Males had 92% more odds of developing tooth wear compared to females. In conclusion, all subjects have some degree of wear. About one-fifth of the study subjects were affected by PTW. The patterns of wear were similar to those encountered in the Western societies. There was statistically significant association between sex and PTW.