Variations in Some Features of Oral Health by Personality Traits, Gender, and Age: Key Factors for Health Promotion

Abstract

Background: Oral diseases remain among the most common non-communicable diseases worldwide, affecting almost half of the world's population. This is partly because there has been a separation of the mouth from the rest of the body and human health, and psychological aspects such as personality, thoughts, and emotions are not taken into account in the dental office. The objective was to analyze the relationship between oral health conditions and personality traits in adult patients who underwent dental treatment at the Center for Health Studies and Services. Methods: This was a descriptive, observational, and correlational study, carried out at the Center for Health Studies and Services. A total of 184 patients who attended the dentistry area in the period from October 2022 to May 2023 participated in the study, of which 59.78% were women and 40.21% men. The age of the population was 18 to 79 years, with the age range of 21-40 years being the most prevalent (48.37%). Results: The results show that although the hygiene of the population treated was good (0.77 ± 0.79) and that the perception of oral health was positive (14.34 ± 9.43), the means and percentages of oral pathologies and parafunctional habits were high (i.e., DMFT: 9.98 ± 5.40; attrition: 87.50%; onychophagia: 45.10%). It is noteworthy that both the correlation, network, multiple line regression, and logistic regression analyses showed associations of the personality, gender, and age variables with a history of caries and oral hygiene as well as with parafunctional habits. Conclusions: Therefore, variations in both the personality and the age and gender of the patients treated have repercussions on oral health conditions, which can be used in the prevention of oral diseases and in health promotion.

Keywords: caries; gender and age; integrative health; parafunctional habits; well-being.

Figure 1

Pearson correlation between the oral health variables, personality traits, and emotional suppression. OHI-S: The Simplified Oral Hygiene Index; DMFT: average number of decayed, missing, and filled permanent teeth; OHIP: oral health impact profile; AngS: anger suppression, DepS: depression suppression; AnxS: anxiety suppression; S. Global: Global emotional suppression. Notes: Red shows the negative correlations and blue shows the positive ones. Variables with significant correlations are underlined.

Figure 2

Principal component analysis. OHI-S: The Simplified Oral Hygiene Index; DMFT: average number of decayed, missing, and filled permanent teeth; OHIP: oral health impact profile; AngS: anger suppression; DepS: depression suppression; AnxS: anxiety suppression.

Figure 3

Network structure with variables of oral health conditions, personality traits and emotional suppression. Panel (A) complete network. (B) Women’s network. (C) Men’s network. OHI-S: The Simplified Oral Hygiene Index; DMFT: average number of decayed, missing, and filled permanent teeth; OHIP: oral health impact profile; AngS: anger suppression, DepS: depression suppression; AnxS: anxiety suppression. Note: The lilac nodes are personality traits, the orange nodes are subscales of emotional suppression, and the yellow nodes are indices of oral health. The green lines are positive correlations and the red lines are negative.

Figure 4

Network structure with variables of oral health conditions, personality traits and emotional suppression. (A) Network without mandibular deviation. (B) Network with mandibular deviation. (C) Network without joint noise. (D) Network with joint noise. (E) Network without parafunctional habits. (F) Network with parafunctional habits. OHI-S: The Simplified Oral Hygiene Index; DMFT: average number of decayed, missing, and filled permanent teeth; OHIP: oral health impact profile; AngS: anger suppression, DepS: depression suppression; AnxS: anxiety suppression. Note: The lilac nodes are personality traits, the orange nodes are subscales of emotional suppression, and the yellow nodes are indices of oral health. The green lines are positive correlations and the red lines are negative.

Figure 5

Strength centrality (standardized) of the oral health condition, personality traits, and emotional suppression variables of each estimated network. OHI-S: The Simplified Oral Hygiene Index; DMFT: average number of decayed, missing, and filled permanent teeth; OHIP: oral health impact profile; AngS: anger suppression, DepS: depression suppression; AnxS: anxiety suppression.