Exploring Toothbrushing Duration Among Adults: A Systematic Review

There is a need for greater understanding of the average brushing time among individuals. Since the average brushing time remains unclear, this study involves a systematic review to assess this aspect of oral hygiene practices and how it has evolved over the years.

The PubMed-MEDLINE and Cochrane-CENTRAL databases were searched from their inception until January 22, 2025, to identify relevant studies. Eligible clinical trials included healthy adults who performed self-brushing. The primary outcome was the average duration of a toothbrushing exercise in seconds/min, with an 'a priori' distinction made between PTB and MTB users. A secondary outcome assessed the correlation between publication year and brushing duration. Sub-analyses differentiated between powered toothbrush (PTB) and manual toothbrush (MTB) users.

Twelve eligible papers were retrieved, providing 16 evaluations with considerable variability in clinical and methodological design. Fourteen evaluations involved MTB users, and two involved PTB users. The study found that uninstructed adults (≥ 18 years) brush their teeth with an MTB for an average of 87 s. Notably, with moderate strength in the observation, there is a trend that brushing duration among MTB users appears to increase over publication years. PTB users averaged 143 s of brushing time.

Within the limitations of the present study design, there is moderate certainty that the average MTB toothbrushing duration among uninstructed adults is approximately one and a half minutes, with a trend suggesting an increase in brushing duration over the years. This duration falls short of the recommended guidelines, whereas PTB users brush for over 2 min on average.

PROSPERO registration number: CRD42024565180.