Association between Chewing Status in Questionnaire for Specific Health Checkup and Oral Health: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

 The specific health checkup is a medical checkup that focuses on metabolic syndrome, and an item on chewing status was added to the questionnaire of the specific health checkup in 2018. However, since there is no dental examination by a dentist in the checkup, it is unclear what kind of oral health status is reflected by the answer of being able to chew well. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the chewing status in the questionnaire of the specified health checkup and the oral health status of those who underwent a typical dental checkup. The subjects were 763 persons who underwent both the specific health checkup and dental checkup at Asahi University Hospital. Those who answered “I can eat anything with a bite” in the questionnaire regarding chewing status were judged to be able to chew well. Logistic regression analysis was performed using the presence of chewing well as the dependent variable and age, sex, smoking habit, current dental treatment, number of teeth present (presence of 24≥ teeth), presence of periodontal pocket depth ≥ 4 mm, presence of decayed teeth, and presence of missing teeth as independent variables. The presence of chewing well was correlated with the presence or absence of dental treatment (presence, odds ratio [OR]=0.470, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.281–0.787), number of teeth present (24≥ teeth, OR=3.784, 95% Cl=1.529–9.326), periodontal pocket depth ≥ 4 mm (presence,OR=0.566, 95% Cl=0.348–0.920), decayed teeth (presence, OR=0.571, 95% Cl=0.343–0.950), and missing teeth (presence, OR=0.485, 95% Cl=0.319–0.736) in this study. These results suggest that the chewing status in the specific health checkup is associated with being under dental treatment, number of teeth present, periodontal condition, decayed teeth, and missing teeth.