A CLINICAL SURVEY OF PERIODONTAL CONDITIONS IN GREECE

The present study used full-mouth clinical assessments of plaque, calc ulus, bleeding on probing, probing pocket depth and probing attachment level to evaluate the periodontal conditions in a rural (A) and an ur ban (B) sample of 25-64 year old Greek adults, comprising 190 and 373 subjects, respectively. 13% of the subjects in sample (A) and 8% in sa mple (B) were edentulous, while mean values of teeth present in the fo ur age cohorts ranged between 19.8-12.6 and 23.3-18.3, respectively. A poor level of oral hygiene was recorded in both samples with high pla que, calculus and bleeding scores. Deep pocketing was more pronounced in the rural than in the urban sample; between 1.7 and 8.0% of all sit es probed showed a PPD of greater than or equal to 6 mm and between 20 and 51.2% of the subjects in each age cohort had at least one deep po cket. Corresponding figures for the urban sample was 0.6-4.7% and 15.1 -49.2%. However, the prevalence of severe attachment loss was of compa rable magnitude in both samples; between 2.8-25.7% of the sites in sam ple (A) and 2.8-20.6% in sample (B) displayed a PAL of greater than or equal to 6 mm, while 32.5-72.1% and 31.8-73.8% of the subjects, respe ctively, had at least one severely affected site. It was further found that the distribution of advanced disease in the samples was skewed; 14.4% of the subjects in sample (A) and 9.5% in sample (B) accounted f or 75% of all deep pockets, while 21.8 and 19.4% of the subjects, resp ectively, accounted for 75% of all sites with PAL of greater than or e qual to 6 mm. Multiple regression revealed that male sex and high plaq ue and bleeding scores had a significant, positive influence to the am ount of attachment loss on a subject level.