Caracterização da saúde oral e qualidade de vida em idosos institucionalizados de Viseu

Abstract

Introduction: The growth in the Portuguese elderly population, due to an increasing life expectancy, has become conspicuous. Which is a great progress for mankind. However, it is also a public health challenge. Oral health care is fundamental to the general well-being of the individual. Material and methods: Cross-sectional observational study composed of a sample of elderly residents in homes in the District of Viseu. A questionnaire, the GOHAI index and the OHIP-14 index were used to obtain data. Results: The sample consisted of 529 institutionalized elderly, aged 65 years or older. Regarding gender, 69.4% (n=367) were women and 30.6% (n=162) men. According to the GOHAI index, most participants (41.5%) have a "Moder-ate" self-perception of oral health. Regarding the OHIP-14 index the results show that the impact of oral health on the quality of life is low, because the av-erage of the overall OHIP-14 was 15. The "Physical pain" was the most affected dimension (2.70) it was also observed that the dimension with the lowest impact was the "Social Limitation" (1.52). Conclusion: The oral health-related quality of life of the present study is generally reasonable. However, there are participants whose impact of oral health on quality of life is significant. In this way, it is important to develop knowledge about oral health in the elderly in order to promote training in this area and improve the level of oral health of the geriatric patient.

Date of Award	20 Jul 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Nélio Jorge Veiga (Supervisor), Patrícia Couto (Co-Supervisor) & Ana Silva (Co-Supervisor)