Oral Health Needs Assessment of Geriatrics Living in Mansoura Center

Objectives: The quality of life is highly linked to the oral health in elderly people. This study was performed to assess differences in oral health needs using normative and sociodental approaches among geriatric patients in Mansoura city. Materials and Methods: This study was of descriptive cross-sectional design based on close ended questionnaires and interviews in addition to the clinical examinations of both past caries experience and periodontal disease state of the patients. Five hundred healthy participants aged ≥ 60 of both genders were randomly selected from urban and rural areas in Mansoura city. Results: Only 2% of the sample had oral lesions and just 2.8% showed root caries. On the other hand 86.8% had periodontitis, 58.8% had decayed teeth, 99.2% had filled teeth, and 65.8% had missed teeth. Impact related needs of the studied population showed that the highest percentage 23.4%, 23.2% significantly reported their teeth as average and good respectively, while the lowest percentage 4%, 7.2% significantly described their teeth as excellent and very poor. Regarding gums the highest percentage 32.8%, 25.4% significantly labeled their gums as average and good respectively, while the lowest percentage 0.6%, 5.2% significantly defined their gums as excellent and very poor. Also, the mean impact of physical domain was 1.73 ± 0.64, psychological domain was 1.56 ± 0.83 and social domain was 1.40 ± 0.57 which indicated that the most participants did not have problems. In Propensity related needs 36.4% did not clean their teeth, and 27% cleaned once a day and 59.2% used toothbrush with toothpaste. Results showed 64.6% did not smoke cigarettes, and 78% did not smoke sheesha.
Conclusion: The elderly population in urban and rural areas in Mansoura center had low mean impact related needs regarding the three domains. There is an urgent need to persuade people to adopt preventive therapy while also seeking medical interventions to enhance the retention of natural teeth into advanced age. Provision of oral health care to older people will not only lead to economic savings but will also reduce the burden of the caregivers.