Factors related to the non-attendance in a clinical oral health study on the home-dwelling old elderly.

Abstract

To evaluate how elderly home-dwelling subjects' background factors, state of health, functional capacity and edentulousness related to their attendance in a comprehensive clinical dental study. Cross-sectional population study; interview and clinical dental data. The City of Helsinki; clinical dental examinations at the Institute of Dentistry, University of Helsinki. 600 elderly aged 76, 81 and 86 years, participants in the medical examinations in the Helsinki Ageing Study one year earlier, 81% being home-dwelling. Age, gender, marital status, family structure, educational level, former line of work, self-perceived general health, dentulousness, ability to move, sense of hearing, state of memory, clinical findings of dementia, other medical diagnoses, and intake of drugs. Participation in clinical dental examinations. The overall participation was 63% being reduced by high age and female gender, 75% of the 76-year-olds, but only 53% of those aged 81 or 86 years were clinically examined, figures were for men 72% and for women 60%. As shown by a multifactorial logit model, the strongest factors related to non-participation were the home-dwelling subjects' old age (OR = 3.6), deteriorated ability to move (OR = 5.3), clinically diagnosed symptoms of dementia (OR = 4.1), or edentulousness (OR = 2.5). Non-participation selectively by those edentulous will lead to prevalence figures on numbers of teeth being too optimistic for the entire elderly population.