Adequacy between needs and offers of dental prostheses among edentulous individuals in dental clinics in the city of Yaoundé

Introduction: Edentulism, the partial or total absence of natural teeth, remains a current a public health problem and is manifested by the need for dental prostheses. The challenge being to reduce its prevalence and its various consequences, the offer must be adequate to the need for dental prostheses. However, several parameters can influence this suitability. It was necessary to verify the effectiveness of the latter in our context, by undertaking this study, the objective of which was to study the adequacy between needs and offers of dental prostheses in edentulous individuals.
Methods: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study in five dental clinics, over a period of 10 months. Were included, edentulous participants who were undergoing prosthetic rehabilitation. An adapted and pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 25.0 software.
Results: The sex ratio was 0.52, the median age was 42 years. Amongst the edentulous individuals, 43.5% needed bridges, 29.9% needed strong cast metal dental prostheses and 18.2% needed implants. Acrylic dental prostheses were the most popular offer (80.4%). The adequacy was 33.3% (bridges), 0% (strong cast metal prostheses) and 28.2% (implants). The lack of financial resources was against this adequacy (56.5%).
Conclusion: The adequacy between needs and offers of dental prostheses among edentulous individuals in dental clinics in the city of Yaoundé is not fully effective.