Abstract
Oral mucosal disease (OMD) is a public health challenge globally, but the epidemiological findings in older adults have been inconsistent in China. Thus, this meta-analysis was carried out to explore the prevalence of OMD and its moderating factors in this population. An electronic literature search was conducted of both international (PubMed, PsycINFO, and EMBASE) and Chinese (China National Knowledge Infrastructure and WanFang) databases from inception to November 1, 2019. The Der–Simonian and Laird random effects model was used to synthesize the prevalence of OMD and its 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Twenty-four studies covering 23,653 older adults were included. The pooled prevalence of OMD was 23% (95% confidence interval: 17.9%–29.0%) Subgroup analyses and meta-analysis revealed that the prevalence of OMD was significantly associated with the reporting sampling, year of publication, and survey (all p values <0.05). This meta-analysis found that the prevalence of OMD among older adults in mainland China was significantly high. Early detection and effective intervention of OMD in older adults have public health and clinical importance.
Highlights
In China, the percentage of people in China aged 60 years or over is rising dramatically [1]; persons of increasing age are more likely to suffer from various oral problems [2]
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis to examine the prevalence of oral mucosal diseases (OMD) in
The pooled prevalence of OMD was 23% in in older adults in mainland China
Summary
In China, the percentage of people in China aged 60 years or over is rising dramatically [1]; persons of increasing age are more likely to suffer from various oral problems [2]. The prevalence of OMD in older adults in China ranges from 0.0% to 83.8% across studies [7,8]. A study from Jiangxi province did not find any OMD patients in the older adult population [8]; in a study on the older adults in an urban community of Xinjiang Uygur. Another study on the oral health survey of Sichuan province between 2015 and 2016 found that 8.2% of participants aged 65–74 years had OMDs [9]. The mixed findings may be partly owing to the differences in survey time across studies, as well as in ethnic background, behavior, and lifestyles across the populations. To achieve a reasonable allocation of health resources, the right
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