A retrospective study on the prevalence of tooth discolouration among dental patients in federal medical centre asaba, delta state, Nigeria

Objective: This retrospective study was conducted to elucidate the prevalence of tooth discolouration among patients considering their gender and age. Methods: A simple random sampling technique was employed to obtain samples from the study population. Data obtained from the sampled population were 199 subjects, of which 104 were females and 95 were males. The data were collected from patients who attended the Dentistry Department of Federal Medical Centre, Asaba, Delta State, between September 2016 to September 2017. The obtained data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 22). Ethical approval for this research was granted bythe Research and Ethics Committee of the Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, Delta State University, Abraka. Results: The prevalence of tooth discolouration was 58% of the studied population, which was noticed to decrease with age. However, tooth discolouration appeared to be more predominant in the 28-37years age group. It was also observed that tooth discolouration was more prevalent among males than in females and a significant relationship between gender and age to tooth discolouration was closely observed. Conclusion: Discoloured dentition is a common diagnosis observed by the medical and dental practitioners in their routine clinical practices. This is so rampant among the youths of the studied populationprobably as a result of their social and unhygienic lifestyles.