This study was conducted from September 2010 to May 2011, with 120 elderly women who have been receiving health care for more than 6 months and have registered as ubjects of individual health care visit from health center, and as National Basic Liveli...
This study was conducted from September 2010 to May 2011, with 120 elderly women who have been receiving health care for more than 6 months and have registered as ubjects of individual health care visit from health center, and as National Basic Livelihood Act Recipients, among 658 people who are in first line of individual health care visit of one health center located in Daegu, in order to understand differences in quality of life according to one's oral health status of the vulnerable elderly women thus to show the importance of it to improve quality of life accordingly, with the means of interviews and surveys with careful monitoring of teeth health status as well.
Collected data was processed through SPSS 18.0 program for technological statistics including frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation, with x²-test, t-test, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.
The research has yielded results as the following.
․Results based on the general traits of subjects were found to have meaningful differences between elderly women in early phase or latter phase according to academic ability, economic status, overall health status.
․From examining remaining teeth for teeth status, it was found that the elderly of latter phase having bigger sense of loss of teeth with higher rate of using dentures, with number of remaining teeth being 12.49 for early phase and 2.41 for latter phase elderly people.
․Oral health status did not show meaningful difference between the elderly of early or latter phase, while oral health activities were found to be decreasing according to the shift from early phase to latter phase.
․From both quality of life based on oral health (OHIP-14) and quality of life based on health(EQ-5D), it was shown that quality of life downgrades as it becomes a part of latter phase.
․Among influencing factors of quality of life based on oral health(OHIP-14), while whether or not the subject is prone to drink alcohol, and the number of remaining teeth were found to be affecting quality of life based on oral health in all ages, in case of elderly women of latter phase, quality of life based on health(EQ-5D) was suggested as a variable that influences quality of life based on oral health.
․Among influencing factors of quality of life based on health(EQ-5D), oral health activities were found to be the variable influencing quality of life based on health in all ages while number of remaining teeth for elderly women of early phase, and quality of life based on oral health(OHIP-14) for elderly women of latter phase, were found to be influencing variable respectively.
According to the research result, as quality of life for elderly women of early phase is more influenced by oral health status and the number of remaining teeth than those of latter phase, it is necessary to be provided with health education including proper usage of toothbrush, dietary selection, and necessity of regular oral health checkup in order to prevent further teeth loss. On the other hand, most of elderly women of latter phase are influenced by overall quality of life based on both oral health and health. Also because they tend to recognize their health status in a more negative way as they are going through not only physical aging but also psychological aging, which leads to passive reaction to health promotion activities, health care providers should be able to take physical symptoms as well as psychological aging into consideration to provide mediation to promote objective and subjective health awareness of the elderly.