Dental pain and associated factors in Mexican adolescents and young adults: a cross-sectional study

Objective: To identify the factors associated with the prevalence of dental pain in Mexican adolescents and young adults. Material and methods: This is a cross-sectional study in which data from 638 Mexican subjects, 16–25 years of age, who were randomly selected from college applicants, were analysed. Questionnaires were administered to collect sociodemographic, economic and behavioural variables. Clinical examinations were carried out to determine the decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFT) index. The outcome variable was dichotomised as 0 (no dental pain in the last 12 months) or 1 (dental pain in the last 12 months). Statistical analyses included binary logistic regression. Results: Average age was 18.76 ± 1.76 years, and 49.2% of participants were women. Prevalence of dental pain was 34.0%. In the final model, variables significantly (P < 0.05) associated with the experience of dental pain were the use of preventive dental services (OR = 0.34), being a former smoker (OR = 2.37), self-report of very poor/poor oral health (OR = 1.94) or fair oral health (OR = 1.94), self-reported dental disease (OR = 2.06) or gingival disease (OR = 2.84). Conclusions: The prevalence of dental pain was associated with self-reported oral health status, preventive dental visits and smoking; these results have implications for dental practice. We found that recent experience of dental pain was common in young adults, being reported by one out of three subjects.