Dental functional status with and without tooth replacement in a Chinese adult population.

Contains fulltext : 110823.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)The objective of this study is to investigate the prevalence of missing teeth and prosthodontic replacements in a Chinese adult population using a hierarchical dental functional classification system. A total of 1,462 dentate subjects over 40 years from Shandong Province, China were included and categorized in the functional classification system with and without tooth replacements. Depending on replacements, subjects could be reclassified (promoted) to categories reflecting higher functionality. "Promotions" were considered indicators for prosthodontic effectiveness. Homogeneities after dichotomization into functional categories appeared to be moderate to good. In the ">/=10 teeth in each jaw" branch, mean number of teeth and posterior occluding pairs were 27.93 +/- 2.74 and 7.10 +/- 1.94, respectively. In the branch "