| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立台北護理學院 === 護理研究所 === 91 === ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship among oral care, health status and quality of life in institutionalized elderly people under long term care.
A cross-sectional correlation design was use to find out the interrelationship. Data were collected from a purposive sample of 123 residents aged 65 and over who were living in one of the four selected hospital-based nursing home. Through face to face interview by investigator and oral examination by dentists, the data were collected by constructed questionnaires, including short portable mental status questionnaire (SPMSQ), resident general health assessment, resident oral health assessment, World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) and oral health impact profile (OHIP). Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s product moment correlation and hierarchical multiple regression.
The results showed: (1) The knowledge and the attitude of oral care among the elderly residents were poor, the practice of mouth care were carried out once or twice with tooth brush and paste every day. About half of the subjects (46.7%) needed help in the practice partly and completely by caregiver. The need (diagnosis by dentists) and the demand (expressed by the residents) for dental treatment had significant difference. (p＝0.000) (2) Oral health status: DMF: 23±8.5, MT: 20.61±10.19. Edentulous subjects with dentures or with only one denture (47.2%) had significantly better QOL than edentulous subjects without any denture or partial denture (36.6%), and the same as about the missing teeth, oral function, mouth care and general health status. (3) The mean score of environmental domain was 13.61±2.69, which was the highest score among the physical, psychological, social relationship and environmental quality of life, whereas the psychological domain was the lowest score (11.63±3.17). The institutionalized elderly had worse scores than community elderly dweller in terms of over all quality of life. (4) The mouth care were significantly positively correlated with oral function(r=0.58,p＜0.001), general health status(r=0.59,p＜0.001), and quality of life(r=0.21-0.41,p＜0.001). The mouth care was a significant predictor of environmental quality of life and general health status, which explained 43.4% of the total amount of variance in general health status. (5) The oral function were the significant predictors in the four domains of WHOQOL-BREF and the total score of OHIP.
Conclusion: The mouth care was significantly positively correlated with quality of life. Edentulous subjects with dentures or with only one denture had significantly better QOL than edentulous subjects without any denture.
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