The diagnosis of oral submucosal fibrosis (OSMF) is easier when patients present later in the disease's progression. For this reason, early identification by knowledgeable practitioners is essential when a patient is asymptomatic. This study aimed to evaluate the frequency of non-specific chief complaints (CC) among OSMF patients presenting to a dental facility. The objective was to evaluate the association between the non-specific primary complaints and the OSMF's grade of disease progression. For the analysis, the department retrospectively collected one year of data on OSMF patients (n = 155). The prevalence of nonspecific CC lesions was examined using SPSS software. The chi-square test was used to evaluate the association between OSMF grade and non-specific chief complaints and gender and non-specific chief complaints. Non-specific chief complaints that were unrelated to OSMF were reported by 5.93% of women and 94.07% of men. 63% of the complaints were related to discomfort, then dental discoloration (24%), missing teeth (11%), and tooth movement (2%). The classification by Kerr et al. showed that only grade 1 cases were symptomless. There was no statistically significant association between gender and the non-specificity of the main critiques, as indicated by the P-value of 0.63 (P > 0.05). A statistically significant association was found between the allocation of non-specific chief complaints and grade among OSMF patients, with a P-value of 0.0001 (P < 0.05). Since OSMF is still not well known, a dentist needs to go beyond the patient's primary complaint when diagnosing OSMF to make an early diagnosis.
