title: Dental status and self-assessed chewing ability in 70- and 80-year-old subjects in Sweden.
abstract: The objective was to compare two cohorts of elderly people, 70 and 80 years old, with respect to dental status and self-assessed chewing ability. The hypotheses were as follows: (i) dental status is associated with self-assessed chewing ability; (ii) chewing ability is poorer among the 80- than the 70-year-old subjects. Identical questionnaires were in 2012 sent to all subjects born in 1942 and 1932, living in two Swedish counties. The response rate was 70.1% resulting in samples of 5697 70- and 2922 80-year-old subjects. Answers to questions on self-assessed chewing ability, dental status and some other factors have been analysed. Dental status varied but was in general good; 72% of the 70- and 60% of the 80-year-old subjects reported that they had all or only few missing teeth. Rate of edentulism was 3% and 7%, respectively. Removable partial dentures were reported by 6% and 10%, respectively, implant treatment by 13% in both cohorts. Self-assessed chewing ability was mostly good and correlated with the number of teeth (Spearman rho = 0.46). A majority of the edentulous subjects assessed their chewing ability as very or fairly good. Logistic regression showed that self-assessed chewing ability was significantly associated with a number of dental variables but also with general health. In conclusion, dental status was relatively good at both ages but somewhat poorer in the older cohort. Dental status, some other dental variables and being healthy were in both age groups significantly associated with self-assessed chewing ability.
authors.affiliation: Post Graduate Dental Education Centre, Örebro County Council, Örebro, Sweden.|School of Health and Medical Sciences, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Unell
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Dentistry - Prosthodontics, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Medical Sciences, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden.|Department of Dentistry, Örebro County Council, Örebro, Sweden.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ekbäck
authors.affiliation: Dental Commissioning Unit, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.|Department of Oral Public Health, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ordell
authors.affiliation: Department of Prosthetic Dentistry/Dental Materials Science, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: G E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Carlsson
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D019094:Dental Prosthesis, Implant-Supported / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003824:Denture, Complete / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003830:Denture, Partial, Fixed / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003832:Denture, Partial, Removable / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008409:Mastication; D009066:Mouth, Edentulous / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009909:Oral Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D057566:Self Report; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: dry mouth; edentulism; general health; gerodontology; logistic regression; mastication