Hye Sook Choi ¹, Moon Hee Kwon ²

Affiliations
1 Department of Dental Hygiene, Kyungdong University, Gangwon-Do, KR
2 Department of Nursing, Kyungdong University, Gangwon-Do, KR

Abstract

Objectives: The oral health status has reported to be as an important factor of EQ-5D. This study was to find out the effect of oral health status on EQ-5D in the Korean elderly. Methods/Statistical Analysis: A cross-sectional view study was conducted on a general population basis. 1097 subjects were participated and checked on socioeconomic history, smoking, drinking, regular dental visit and EuroQol-5D. The oral health status as periodontal disease treatment, chewing and speaking was measured. The data was analyzed using multi-level logistic regression for the impacting factors of oral health on EQ-5D with complex sampling methods by SPSS (ver.21.0). Findings: These results reported that chewing difficulty was the strongest impacting factor on EQ-5D. The other factors on EQ-5D were being younger, male, near rich and more walking activity. The elderly who had chewing difficulty was more likely to have low EQ-5D and had an independent effect statistically. This study was valuable in the view of rapidly increasing older people subjects in Korea. These results are valuable for the elderly who are rapidly increasing in Korea. According to existing reports, teeth missing number was closely connected with health outcomes and these are in consensus with this study results. Application/Improvements: Oral health management such as chewing difficulty and speaking may be very important strategy to improve the Quality of Life especially in the elderly population.

Keywords

Chewing, EQ-5D, Impacting Factor, Oral Health Status, Speaking, The Elderly.

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Moon Hee Kwon ¹, Hye Sook Choi ²

Affiliations
1 Department of Nursing, Kyungdong University, Gangwon-Do, KR
2 Department of Dental Hygiene, Kyungdong University, Gangwon-Do, KR

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Few researchers have reported the influence level of impacting factors about oral health of the community among the older people. We examined impacting factors on oral health status. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Using available data through a cross-sectional survey, we assessed impacting factors of oral health status with the individual and the living area and economic activity as the community factors in a sample of 1106 adults of 65 or older. We used individual-level oral health examination, predisposing factors (age, gender, education, marital status), enabling factors (insurance, income), and needs factors (mental, physical problems) with community-level data (living area, economic activity). Findings: We analyzed the impacting factors on oral health status of the community after adjustment for confounding factors by using multi-level logistic regression models. Our results showed that individual- level factors like being younger, male, non-married, non-poor, higher educational level, public and private insurances were impacting factors being related with higher odds of taking oral health examination. In conclusion, the elderly being younger, male as individual-level factors were more likely to have oral health care services even after adjusting the community-level factors (odds ratio = 2.13(1.03-4.40); p=.04; odds ratio = 1.72(1.11-2.65); p=.01). Improvements: Therefore, personalized and tailored policy plans are needed to intervene in the individual level with community levels to keep and improve oral health status in the Korean elderly.

Keywords

Impacting Factors, Insurance, Oral Health Status, Physical Health, The Elderly.

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