Effects of obesity/overweight, chronic diseases, use of prescription medications on the oral health of senior citizens
Date
2009
DOI
Authors
Srinivasan, Priya
Version
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the relationship between obesity/overweight, chronic diseases, prescription medication use and oral health in an elderly population.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed with individuals who underwent screening at the HealthLink Wellness Health Fair, RI in June 2008. Data was collected using a selfadministered questionnaire along with medical and dental examinations. Data were coded and entered into Epi-Info version 3.4.1 where it was cleaned and exported to SAS version 9.1 for statistical analysis. Data was restricted to those aged 65 years and older who had both general health and dental health examinations. The outcome variables were caries (untreated caries or DMFT), root tips, and edentulousness. The main predictor variables were Body Mass Index (BMI), chronic diseases, and use of prescription medications. Other predictor variables used were age, gender, smoking, overall health status on the day of examination, dry mouth, and oral hygiene. Frequencies and percentages for categorical variables, means for continuous variables, bivariate analyses, multivariate logistic and multiple linear regression analyses were performed.
Results: The total number of subjects in the study was 141 with a mean age of 74.1 ± 5.9 years. In multivariate analyses after controlling for potential confounders, we did not find any statistically significant associations between oral health outcome variables (untreated caries, DMFT, root tips, and edentulousness) and the main predictor variables (obesity/overweight, 11l chronic diseases, and prescription medication use). However, we found significant relationships between oral hygiene and untreated caries (OR= 5.5, 95% CI 1.7, 18.2, p-value = 0.005); smoking and DMFT (estimate= 4.6, p-value = 0.0002); smoking and edentulousness (OR= 12.3, 95% CI 2.5, 60.9, p-value = 0.002); and oral hygiene and edentulousness (OR= 0.3, 95% CI 0.1, 0.8, p-value = 0.02).
Conclusion: In this study population there is no association between obesity/overweight, chronic diseases, prescription medication use and oral health. This could be due to the study population who were participants of a wellness program. The HealthLink Wellness Program is intended to help retirees maintain good health, by monitoring their health conditions twice a year, and by helping them maintain their health through health education workshops.
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Thesis (MSD) --Boston University, Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, 2010 (Department of Health Policy and Health Services Research).
Includes bibliographic references: leaves 80-83.
Thesis (MSD) --Boston University, Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, 2010 (Department of Health Policy and Health Services Research).
Includes bibliographic references: leaves 80-83.
License
This work is protected by copyright. Downloading is restricted to the BU community. If you are the author of this work and would like to make it publicly available, please contact open-help@bu.edu.