Edentulism and shortened dental arch in Brazilian elderly from the National Survey of Oral Health 2003

Résumé 0

"OBJECTIVE:To describe the distribution of edentulism and estimate theprevalence of functional dentition and shortened dental arch among elderlypopulation.METHODS:A population-based epidemiological study was carried out with asample of 5,349 respondents aged 65 to 74 years obtained from the 2002 and2003 Brazilian Ministry of Health/Division of Oral Health survey database. Thefollowing variables were studied: gender; macroregion of residence; missingteeth; percentage that met the World Health Organization goal for oral healthin the age group 65 to 74 years (50% having at least 20 natural teeth); presenceof shortened dental arch; number of posterior occluding pairs of teeth. TheChi-square test assessed the association between categorical variables. TheKruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were used to assess differences of meanbetween number of posterior occluding pairs teeth, macro-region and gender.RESULTS:The elderly population had an average of 5.49 teeth (SD: 7.93)with a median of 0. The proportion of completely edentulous respondents was54.7%. Complete edentulism was 18.2% in the upper arch and 1.9% in thelower arch. The World Health Organization goal was achieved in 10% of allrespondents studied. However, only 2.7% had acceptable masticatory functionand aesthetics (having at least shortened dental arch) and a mean number ofposterior occluding pairs of 6.94 (SD=2.97). There were significant differencesof the percentage of respondents that met the World Health Organization goaland presence of shortened dental arch between men and women. There weredifferences in shortened dental arch between macroregions.CONCLUSIONS:The Brazilian epidemiological oral health survey showedhigh rate of edentulism and low rate of shortened dental arch in the elderlypopulation studied, thus suggesting significant functional and aestheticimpairment in all Brazilian macroregions especially among women."