The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Tobacco smoking is a major risk factors to a number of oral diseases obviously the magnitude at which tobacco products influence dental beauty has not been completely investigated. The purpose of this study is to determine satisfaction with own tooth colour of smokers and non- smokers and to search whether have higher levels of self assessed tooth discoloration compared to non – smokers.

Methods: Lagos state cross sectional study was conducted on a sample of 9,000 Nigerian young adults 4,202 young adults were interviewed. Smoking altitude was recorded together with satisfaction with own tooth colour. Prevalence of perceived discoloration was measured by asking respondents to match their own tooth colour to one of a 9 set tooth photographs of differing seventies of discoloration

Results: Thirty one percent of smokers reported having moderate and severe level of tooth discoloration compared to seventeen percent in non-smokers. As also as perceiving discoloration smokers were more prone to be dissatisfied with their own tooth colour compared to non- smokers.

The study provides more evidence of the negative impact of tobacco smoking on dental beauty. This evidence also provided by this study many also be of great value in short interventions for smoking cassation in the dental group.