Factors associated with gingival recession prevalence in undergraduate students of the Faculty of Dentistry of the Universidad de los Andes in the year 2022.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of gingival recessions in students of the faculty of odontology at Universidad de Los Andes and the factor associated with its presence.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a randomized stratified sampling was used to select the students. The sample included 311 undergraduate students evaluated between March and December 2022. The year spectrum was from 17 to 29 years old. Two calibrated examiners intra e interoperator completed a clinical evaluation with a periodontal probe, where the purpose was to diagnose gingival recessions and identify if there were any related factors such as smoking, braces, bruxism, marginal insertion frenulum, fine phenotype, and malposition. The total prevalence was described with each trust interval of 95%. The association between categorical variables was analyzed with the chi-square test, and the t-student test of the Mann-Whitney test analyzed the difference between continuous variables and recession prevalence.

Results: 93,56% of the students presented at least one gingival recession. The highest prevalence related to teeth occurred in pieces 1.6, 3.4, 2.6, and 4.1, and the most severe were 3.3, 4.3, and 1.3. The most associated factor related to recessions was orthodontics, with a prevalence of 75,2%. Bruxism showed a positive association with the number of recessions, with a prevalence of 60,7%.

Conclusions: Buccal gingival recessions were very prevalent in undergraduate students at the dental school of Universidad de los Andes during 2022, and they were strongly associated with the history of orthodontics.