The prevalence of dental flossing in patients with chronic periodontitis in Iranian population

Improving the level of oral hygiene is one of the important principles that maintains oral health. There are no studies on the prevalence of dental floss usage and related factors among chronic periodontitis patients in Iran. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of flossing in patients with chronic periodontitis referred to the Dental Clinic of Guilan University of medical sciences in 2019.

In this study, 214 people who had referred to the dental clinic of Guilan University of Medical Sciences for periodontal assessment in 2019, were studied according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. If the relevant hypothesis was established, chisquare test was used and otherwise Fisher exact test was utilized. The software used was SPSS version 24 and significant level of 0.05 was considered in all tests.

According to the collected data, the number of men and women was almost equal. Most of the subjects were in the age group of 30-49. About half of surveyed people had under diploma education and most of them were married. About one third of these patients have visited a dentist less than a year ago. According to the results, there was no significant relationship between gender and flossing, as well as between visiting the dentist and the severity of the disease. But there was a significant relationship between marriage, education and brushing with the severity of the disease. The severity of the disease was higher in married people and also increased with decreasing level of education and frequency of brushing.

The prevalence of flossing was similar in men and women and different age groups, but was lesser in people with severe chronic periodontitis and diabetes. So, planning to educate and encourage people to the use dental floss is suggested.