Jagan Kumar Baskaradoss
Relationship between oral health literacy and oral health status
Kuwait University
health literacy found strong predictor individuals health health behavior health outcomes lower literacy linked problems use preventive services delayed diagnoses medical conditions poor adherence medical instructions poor selfmanagement skills increased mortality risks poor health outcomes higher health care costs aim study determine relationship oral health literacy ohl oral health status among patients attending universityaffiliated dental clinica convenience sample participants drawn dental patients presenting school dental medicine sodm case western reserve university cwru information subjects demographic details income family size insurance type smoking history collected using data collection form data patients periodontal caries risk assessment caries experience periodontal status extracted patients electronic dental records comprehensive measure oral health knowledge cmohk used record oral health literacy median cmohk score 18 used categorize sample limited ohl 18 adequate ohl 18 groups multivariate logistic regression model built examine associations various independent variables ohl levelsdata 150 respondents analyzed half participants female 553 majority caucasian 60 average age participants 533 years standard deviation sd 168 higher percentage african americans individuals low education limited ohl levels p 005 mean decayed missing filled teeth dmft score population 733 268 subjects limited ohl significantly higher mean values missing teeth p 005 lower mean values filled teeth p 005 compared subjects adequate ohl significantly higher percentage subjects limited ohl severe periodontitis compared adequate ohl p 004 multivariate analysis found periodontal status significantly associated ohl scores p 0015subjects limited ohl levels poorer periodontal health improving ohl patients may help efforts improve adherence medical instructions selfmanagement skills overall treatment outcomes future research could focus assessing impact ohl interventions oral health could valuable clinical practitioners