WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Alvine Tchabong, Anselme Michel Yawat Djogang*, Michael Ashu Agbor, Serge Honoré Tchoukoua, Jean-Paul Sekele Isouradi-Bourley and Hubert Ntumba Mulumba

ABSTRACT

Oral health is essential for the general condition and quality of life. Loss of oral function may be due to tooth loss, which can affect the quality of life of an individual. The aim of our study was to evaluate the quality of life in toothless adults in Ndé division. A total of 1054 edentulous subjects (partial, mixed, total) completed the OHIP-14 questionnaire, used for assessing the quality of life in edentulous patients. Males (63%), were more dominant and the ages of the patients ranged between 18 to 120 years old. Caries (71.6%), were the leading cause of tooth loss followed by poor oral hygiene (63.15%) and the consequence being the loss of aesthetics at 56.6%. Almost all of our surveyed patients were partially edentulous (95.4%), only 5.31% compensated with prostheses and absence of discomfort with some missing teeth was found in 89.3% of patients. Difficulty in chewing (39.6%) was the general complaint followed by discomfort to eat at 38%. The mixed edentulous people had the worst quality of life with a functional dissatisfaction of 80.71%. In general, the partial edentulous and prosthesis carriers had a good quality of life. The impact of missing teeth on the quality of life of the inhabitants of the Ndé division is weak. Posterior partial missing teeth does not necessarily lead to a very poor quality of life and prosthetic rehabilitation is necessary and constitute the best solution for mixed and total in toothless adults. This study recommends that visiting the dentist once a year would be ideal to avoid some causes of edentulous in Ndé division of Cameroon.

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