Association between oral health-related quality of life and physical frailty among community-dwelling older adults: A 2-year longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND

Frailty is a major health concern among older adults, and its association with oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) remains underexplored in longitudinal studies.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the association between baseline OHRQoL and physical frailty incidence at a 2-year follow-up in community-dwelling older adults.

DESIGN

Prospective longitudinal study.

SETTING

The study was conducted within the Tosa Longitudinal Aging Study framework in Japan.

PARTICIPANTS

This study included 144 community-dwelling older adults (50 men and 94 women; median age, 81.0 years) with complete data who participated in the Tosa Longitudinal Aging Study in 2016 and 2018 and were not categorized as physical frailty in 2016.

MEASUREMENTS

Baseline assessment included OHRQoL, which was evaluated using the General Oral Health Assessment Index (GOHAI; range 12-60), with higher scores indicating better OHRQoL, oral function, and general health status. The incidence of physical frailty was defined using the revised Japanese version of the Cardiovascular Health Study criteria. The association between the GOHAI score and physical frailty was assessed using logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

The median baseline GOHAI score was 58. The incidence of frailty after a 2-year follow-up was 13.9 % among the participants (18.0 and 11.7 % for men and women, respectively). Each point of the GOHAI score was associated with an 11 % reduction in frailty risk over 2 years after adjusting by age, sex, number of teeth, Food Diversity Score, Geriatric Depression Scale score, eating alone, smoking, and more than five medications (adjusted odds ratio: 0.893; 95 % confidence interval: 0.810-0.984).

CONCLUSIONS

This longitudinal study showed that a higher baseline OHRQoL, based on the GOHAI score, was linked to a lower incidence of physical frailty among community-dwelling older adults after 2 years.