Oral Health Care Behaviors among the Elderly in Nakhonchaisi Sub-district, Nakhonchaisi District, Nakhon Pathom.

Abstract

Objective :To study  the oral health care  behaviors  among the Elderly in Nakhonchaisi Sub-district, Nakhonchaisi District, Nakhon Pathom  and  compare the oral  health care behaviors  related to their demographic factors, contributing factors and  reinforcement factors  of oral  health care.

Method: Cross-sectional descriptive study was done. The sample size consisted of 250 elders from community in Nakhonchaisi sub-district ,Nakhonchaisi District, Nakhon Pathom were recruited by a stratified random sampling technique. The individual data were interviewed  by using questionnaires. Data were collected  during November to December  2018. The statistics used to analyze data were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test and one way ANOVA.

Results:The findings of this study revealed  that the level of oral health care behaviors  of the elderly in Nakhonchaisi Sub-district, Nakhonchaisi  District, Nakhon Pathom  had high  level in overall  ( =3.78) . As regarded the demographic factors. the elderly with different ages had different level of  oral health care behaviors at .05 level of statistical significance .The elderly people aged 60-69 years had the highest level of oral health care behaviors differed from the elderly aged  80 years or more with the lowest level of the behaviors.  Under considering of the underlying  diseases  was found that the elderly with diabetes had less level of oral health care behaviors  than the elderly  without diabetes at .05 level of statistical significance. And  lastly, with regard to reinforcement factors. the elderly who received  advice from public health officials had A higher level of oral health care behaviors than the elderly who were not advised  at .05 level of statistical significance.