Abstract
Objectives: Republic of Korea has entered an aged society, recently. As chronic diseases increase, elderly inpatients has been increasing and they have used caregivers for convenience. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the oral health knowledge and attitude of caregivers on oral health management of elderly inpatients, which would affect the general health and quality of life. Methods: A survey questionnaire was distributed to the caregiver(n=165), at a neurosurgery or orthopedic hospital inpatient ward in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do from April 1 to 14, 2017. We analyzed the data with descriptive statistics analysis, chi-squared analysis and logistic regression analysis by using SPSS 23.0. Results: The response rate to the questionnaire was 92%. Oral health management provided by caregivers to inpatients in the elderly was prevention of oral diseases(92.8%), tooth brushing (89.5%), use of oral care products(68.4%), denture cleaning(90.8%) and oral cleaning(90.8%). Frequency analysis of oral health management in accordance with the educational needs of caregivers was all confirmed statistically significant(p<0.05). In the logistics regression model, oral health knowledge was significantly associated with low oral cleaning(OR=1.58) and oral health attitude was significantly associated with high denture cleaning(OR=1.29) and oral cleaning(OR=1.28) after adjustment for other covariates including gender, age, certification, education level, ward, working years. Conclusions: It is necessary to expand the scope and improve the quality of education that can change the attitudes and behaviors of the caregivers on the oral health management of the elderly on the basis of the current oral health education.