한국노인의 전신건강상태와 주관적 구강건강 관련성

Abstract

Systemic health conditions increase with advancing age, and may be linked to poor self-reported oral health. The purpose of this study was toevaluate the association between systemic health conditions and poor self-reported oral health among Korean elderly. The study used a nationallyrepresentative sample of Koreans (2012 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) aged 65∼98 years (n=1,595). Systemic healthconditions in this population were assessed by the presence of one or more of the following conditions: obesity, hypertension, diabetes, andhypercholesterolemia. The relative risk of poor self-reported oral health according to the occurrence of systemic health conditions was estimatedby multivariate logistic regression after controlling for several potential confounders (i.e., socio-demographic factors, oral health behaviors, healthbehaviors, and psychological factors). After adjustment for these confounders, the relative risk of having poor self-reported oral health was greateramong the elderly with one or more systemic health conditions than in those without a systemic health condition. The odds ratio of having poorself-reported oral health according to the occurrence of systemic health conditions was 1.51 (95% confidence interval, 1.08∼2.12). Among theKorean elderly, perception of poor oral health was associated with the presence of one or more systemic health conditions. Future studies areneeded to examine the detailed causal relation between systemic health conditions and poor oral health longitudinally.