Abstract
The present study investigated the prevalence of poor self-perceived oral health and its association with oral health, general health and socioeconomic factors among elderly individuals from São Paulo, Brazil. The sample consisted of 871 elderly individuals enrolled in the Health, Wellbeing and Aging cohort study. Self-perceived oral health was measured by the question: "How would you rate your oral health?". Most subjects self-rated their oral health as good. Among dentate individuals, poor oral health was related to depression, poor self-rated health, dental treatment, dental checkups and the psychosocial subscale scores of the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index. Edentulous individuals were more likely to report poor oral health, whereas those with higher psychosocial scores were less likely to report poor self-rated oral health. Poor self-rated oral health is associated with general health factors and the psychosocial impact of oral health on quality of life, regardless of socioeconomic and clinical health measures.
Highlights
The present study investigated the prevalence of poor self-perceived oral health and its association with oral health, general health and socioeconomic factors among elderly individuals from São Paulo, Brazil
The same pattern was observed in relation to dentate and edentulous individuals (69.55% and 79.46%, respectively), with a significant difference detected between the two groups (p = 0.0086)
The results of the present study reveal that about a quarter (25.64%) of elderly individuals had poor self-perceived oral health and that this percentage was higher among dentate individuals (30.45%) than in edentulous individuals (20.54%) These findings are in agreement with the literature, which reports that most elderly individuals have good self-rated oral health [6,7,8,11,28,29,30]
Summary
The present study investigated the prevalence of poor self-perceived oral health and its association with oral health, general health and socioeconomic factors among elderly individuals from São Paulo, Brazil. Self-perceived oral health was measured by the question: “How would you rate your oral health?”. Most subjects self-rated their oral health as good. Poor oral health was related to depression, poor self-rated health, dental treatment, dental checkups and the psychosocial subscale scores of the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index. Edentulous individuals were more likely to report poor oral health, whereas those with higher psychosocial scores were less likely to report poor self-rated oral health. Poor self-rated oral health is associated with general health factors and the psychosocial impact of oral health on quality of life, regardless of socioeconomic and clinical health measures
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