RGO: Revista Gaúcha de Odontologia (Dec 2009)
The association between smoking and chronic periodontitis in users of the public dental services, “Sistema Único de Saúde”, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Abstract
Objective: To assess the association between smoking and chronic periodontitis in users of the public dental services, “Sistema Único de Saúde”, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil. Methods: One hundred patients who answered a questionnaire, were submitted to a full periodontal exam for classification according to the type, extent and severity of chronic periodontitis. In these interviews, information was collected about the use of tobacco. Association tests were carried out (RP, X2, Fisher’s exact test, ANOVA and the Student’s-t, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests) at a significance level of 5% and with confidence intervals of 95%. Results: The prevalence of chronic periodontitis, classified as Severe, was higher in men (42.4%); those classified as Moderate or Light were more common in women (60.7%). As regards the number of cigarettes smoked in their lifetimes, the patients with Severe Chronic Periodontitis had a higher average (4831.5 cigarettes package) than the patients classified as Moderate or Light (1397.6 cigarettes package). After an adjustment to take into account all the variables, it was strongly maintained that the severity of periodontitis was associated with the length of the smoking, even more so than the effect of the quantity of cigarettes smoked per day in the whole lifetime. Conclusion: Smoking was seen to be associated with periodontal disease and the degree of severity and extent of chronic periodontitis were significantly associated with the duration of smoking.
