Abstract
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the oral health status of elderly people lived in nursing home with private home in Gwangju metropolitan city for development oral healthy policy of elderly people. Methods: 255 elderly subjects in nursing home aged more than 65 in 10 sample clusters were selected by convenience cluster sampling. The rest of subjects were composed of 264 subjects in elderly welfare complexes and house (private home) for the elderly. Oral health surveys were accomplished based on Korean National Oral Health Survey Guideline. Oral health indices were produced by survey results, chi-square test and t-test were used to discriminate significance between nursing home group and private home group. Results: Number of present teeth of the elderly lived in private home was 16.96 and higher than the elderly lived in nursing home (p<0.001). The elderly lived in nursing home showed higher DMFT, DMFS, DT and MT index than the elderly lived in private home (p<0.001). Percentage of subject need prosthesis was higher in the elderly lived in nursing home (p<0.001). Conclusions: Preventive dental care and public oral health promotion program for low socioeconomic elderly people is most keenly necessary, because low socioeconomic old aged population had higher prevalence and severity of oral disease than general old population as the result of this study showed.