Associations between xerostomia and health status indicators in the elderly
Bibliographic record
Abstract
AIMS: This study investigated the associations between xerostomia (dry mouth) (low, moderate and high) with other categorical variables (e.g. demographic and health status indicators). This paper aims to report on the severity of xerostomia in the elderly population and investigate the relationship with other aspects of perceived health. METHOD: Data were obtained from a cross-sectional survey of 225 elderly people from a large multilevel geriatric care centre. The centre consists of three levels of care: an apartment building in which residents live more or less independently, a home for the aged, and a chronic care hospital. Participants in the study were recruited when they attended the dental care facility. Data were collected by means of a personal interview conducted either at the dental care facility or the participant's residence. RESULTS: The mean age was 83 years. Most were females (72%) and almost all (99%) reported one or more chronic medical conditions; 88% had physical disabilities. Xerostomia was recorded on a seven-point scale. Scores were categorised as low, medium or high and the proportions were 49.3%, 30.3% and 20.4% respectively Bivariate analysis showed no association between dry mouth and sex, age, general health change or life satisfaction. However, when the high xerostomia group was separated out and odds ratios calculated they were 2.3 to 4.9 times more likely to experience a negative impact on health than the low group. Xerostomia did not have a significant impact on chewing capacity, morale or stress, although it contributed to the variability of the oral health-related quality of life measures. It was the only variable with a significant effect (OR 2.55) for the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 and displayed a higher odds ratio (2.76) for the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index. Self-reported xerostomia in the elderly population can be categorised into a severity scale. Those suffering most from xerostomia are more likely to experience a negative impact on general health. CONCLUSION: The key finding in this study is that xerostomia has a significant and negative impact on the quality of life of elderly individuals, though oral function may be less affected.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".