Longitudinal associations between oral health impacts and quality of life among a national cohort of Thai adults

Abstract

BackgroundThere is limited evidence on the association between oral health and general health in middle-income countries. This study analysed data from 60,569 adult students enrolled at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University and residing throughout Thailand who reported oral health impacts at the 2005 baseline and 2009 health status based on Short Form (SF-8) survey.FindingsIn 2005, 16.4% had difficulty chewing and/or swallowing, 13.4% reported difficulty speaking and/or discomfort with social interaction, and 10.8% of the cohort reported having pain associated with teeth or dentures. Cohort members reporting one or more oral health impacts in 2005 had lower SF-8 mean scores in 2009. In particular, monotonic dose–response gradients in 2005–2009 associations based on multivariate linear regression were found between an increase in number of oral impacts (0, 1, 2, 3) and a decline in SF-8 Physical Component Summary scores (adjusted means of 50.5, 49.2, 48.6, 47.9) as well as SF-8 Mental Component Summary scores (adjusted means of 43.2, 40.9, 40.3, 38.6) in younger cohort members. Similar dose response gradients were found in older cohort members.ConclusionsWe found strong association between oral health impacts and adverse health and quality of life among Thai adults. This finding confirms that oral health is one of the key determinants of population health.

Do Oral Health Conditions Adversely Impact Young Adults?

“…It may be argued that interpretations of cross-sectional data, as the present one, should account for their limitations. We acknowledge this limitation, but we also consider the new insight provided by a longitudinal population-based cohort study that showed consistent and significant associations between oral health impacts and overall quality of life in middle-aged adults which were previously identified in a cross-sectional study [Yiengprugsawan et al, 2013]. Also, the reliability of the questionnaire was poor for 9.2% of the questions (κ <0.4) related to the frequency and the time of the day that food and beverages were consumed.…”

“…The OHIP-14 has also been used in studies that measured the OHRQoL in young adults, though the information available is not as consistent as in adults [López and Baelum, 2007;Lawrence et al, 2008] and the age groups vary from one study to another [Lawrence et al, 2008;Brennan and Spencer, 2009;Locker and Quiñonez, 2009;Yiengprugsawan et al, 2013]. In this respect, the definition of young adults is one of the most controversial and ambiguous life stages as exemplified by the fact that several United Nations entities, instruments and regional organizations have somewhat different definitions of young people.…”

Association between oral conditions and functional limitations in childhood

“…However, toothache was an indicator of negative impact on eating/ Introduction Quality of life in childhood can be affected by oral health problems that cause pain and discomfort due to acute or chronic infection. Such problems can have an impact on sleep, school attendance, learning capacity, language, food habits and finances (1).…”

Bayesian Inference of Spatially Correlated Binary Data Using Skew-Normal Latent Variables with Application in Tooth Caries Analysis

“…The higher education and the income of the head of the family are the lower caries occurrences of the individual. These can be considered in oral health care and tooth caries treatment programs in the surveyed sample [65]. ) ( )…”