Oral Health Status of Students in One Mid-Western University

access to oral health;lifestyle behavior;oral health;oral hygiene;Public Health;Public Health

Duzdar, RandJohnson, Vicki ;

University of Michigan

关键词: access to oral health;    lifestyle behavior;    oral health;    oral hygiene;    Public Health;    Public Health;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/136088/Duzdar2016.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

A web-based survey of the students at the university of Michigan-Flint was conducted using the Qualtrics system to evaluate oral health status. The objective of the study was to investigate the association between demographics, oral hygiene & lifestyle behavior, self-described general health and depression and oral health status with access to healthcare services and use of fluoridated water as control variables. Oral health status was defined by three dependent variables, namely, self-described oral health (SDOH), self-described oral health compared to peers (SDOHCP) and dental visits due to an oral issue (DVOI). It was hypothesized that proper oral hygiene and lifestyle behavior will be positively associated with oral health status. It was also hypothesized that depression and fair/poor self-described general health are associated with fair/poor self-described oral health status. In addition, it was hypothesized that younger age will be associated with fair/poor oral health status. 226 students responded to the survey with the majority being female (77.9%). Significant positive association between oral hygiene behavior described by daily teeth brushing and excellent/good SDOH (P=0.03, OR=6.05, 95% CI 4.51-8.13) and better/same SDOHCP (P=0.05, OR=4.87, 95% CI 3.76-6.30), while significant positive association between frequency of teeth brushing was found with excellent/good SDOH (P=0.04, OR=2.12, 95% CI 1.03-4.37). Self-described general health status was found to have strong positive association with both excellent/good SDOH (P=0.01, OR=5.32, 95% CI 2.24-12.63) and better/same SDOHCP (P=.01, OR=3.11, 95% CI 1.33-7.27). Access to health care services described by frequency of dental visits and frequency of hygienist visits were found to have strong positive association with excellent/good SDOH (P=.01, OR=2.74, 95% CI 1.30-5.76) and (P=.01, OR=2.86, 95% CI 1.35-6.06), respectively and DVOI (P=0.01, OR=9.55, 95% CI 3.3-27.66) and (P=0.01, OR=13.45, 95% CI 4.03-44.83), respectively. Use of fluoridated water was found to have significant positive association with excellent/good SDOH (P=0.04, OR=2.12, 95% CI 1.01-4.45). These findings support the first hypothesis in this work that a positive association exist. No association was found between depression as an independent variable and any of the oral health status indicators such as SDOH, SDOHCP and DVOI, where P>0.05 and 95% CI of OR crossed 1. This finding refutes the second hypothesis in this work, which states that a positive association exists. In addition, no association was found between younger age and SDOH, SDOHCP and DVOI, where P>0.05 and 95% CI of OR crossed 1. This result also refutes the third hypothesis in this work. Lifestyle behavior described by oral health issues interfering with work, life and school was found to have significant negative association with SDOH (P=0.01, OR=0.26, 95% CI 0.10-0.65) and significant positive association with DVOI (P=0.01, OR=4.74, 95% CI 1.86-12.09), which was an unexpected result but was rationalized as an outlier since students responded to this question without relating it to their own SDOH and DVOI. A binary regression model was developed for each of the three oral health status indicators to try to predict future outcomes. The accuracy of the regression models for both SDOH and DVOI was very good, while the accuracy of the model for SDOHCP was found to be inadequate.