An interesting study was presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) that was in conjunction with the 47th Annual Meeting of the CADR in Portland, Oregon on March 17, 2023. The study was conducted by lead author Alex Kalaigian from the University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry and was part of a talk on “Examining Mental Health and Oral Health: A Nationally Representative Cohort” in a session titled “Psychological Factors for Oral Health.” The study analyzed self-reported data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study.
The self-reported data had a screener that measured mental health symptoms according to three disorder categorizations: internalizing, externalizing, and substance use and evaulated six oral health outcomes: self-rated oral health, bleeding gums, loose teeth, tooth loss, gum disease, and bone loss. The study authors used a cross-sectional analysis to compare the prevalence of the six oral health outcomes with the severity of mental health problems for 30,753 participants. Oral health outcomes were assessed according to mental health problems. The authors used logistic regression models and controlled for confounders by using imputation for missing values.
The authors found that all six adverse oral health outcomes showed a statistically significant greater prevalence for increasing severity of mental health problems. Associations with externalizing and substance use problems largely went away, but multiple associations with internalizing problems remained. The authors found that symptoms of internalizing problems are a reasonable risk factor for future adverse oral health. As an example of the results in the study, the authors found the adjusted odds of bone loss around teeth were 1.79 times greater at high versus none/low categories of internalizing symptoms, and the adjusted odds of bleeding gums were 1.40 times greater at high versus none/low categories of internalizing symptoms.
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The authors feel that doctors and dentists should anticipate higher levels of oral disease among those with adverse mental health conditions. The authors found that symptoms of internalizing problems are a reasonable risk factor for future adverse oral health. These results can help to inform both medical and dental communities in diagnosing and providing treatment to individuals suffering from mental illness.