Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the dietary habits and oral health of elderly people in an attempt to pave the way for the development of oral health promotion programs geared toward improving the quality of life of the elderly. The subjects in this study were senior citizens who were selected by convenience sampling from Seoul. The findings of the study were as follows: 1. Regarding subjective oral health state, 54.5% of the elderly people, more than the half, considered their mouth to be in good health. The number of their mean remaining permanent teeth was 13.71. 47.5 percent of the senior citizens investigated had no shaking teeth. 2. Those who found themselves to be in good oral health had meals on a regular basis(p=0.022) and ate detergent food often. The gaps between them and the others was significant(p=0.005). In contrast, the elderly people who were in a bad oral health frequently ate cariogenic food(p=0.044). 3. The elderly people who had 21 teeth or more ate detergent food often(p=0.029), and those who owned no teeth had a sweet teeth(p=0.003), ate more cariogenic food(p=0.001) and had a snack frequently(p=0.026). 4. The subjective oral health status had a positive correlation to detergent food intake(r=0.23) and had a slightly negative correlation to preference for sweets(r=-0.14), cariogenic food intake(r=-0.14) and snack intake(r=-0.06). The number of tooth was positively correlated to detergent food intake(r=0.23) and negatively to preference for sweets(r=0.32), cariogenic food intake(r=-0.30) and snack intake(r=-0.21). The presence or absence of shaking teeth had a positive correlation to snack intake(r=0.14). The above-mentioned findings suggested that the dietary habits of the elderly people had a statistically significant relationship to subjective and objective oral health state, which indicated that there was a close relationship between oral health and dietary habits. Therefore how to improve dietary habits as well as oral health should be taken into account when oral health promotion programs are developed for the sake of the elderly. That would contribute to promoting the oral health of elderly people and eventually boosting their quality of life.
