Dental health and treatment needs of elderly home residents and non-residents in Yazd city

Aging phenomena needs suitable life-time situation. According to WHO report, the number of 70 years old people has reached 585 million troops in 2001, 9% of total world population. Because of the problems in care, maintenance and health livelihood improvement are necessary in this age group, especially those about oral health. The aim of this study was to investigate the dental health needs in elderly group. Through a cross-sectional study, 77 elderly people as residents and 74 non-residents, in elderly home in Yazd city were examined clinically and interviewed by questionnaire. Dentostomatic problems, dental care need, edentulism and prosthetic tooth were variables of study. Data were analyzed by chi-square test via SPSS software. According to the results, there were statistically significant differences between variable of treatment tendency (P = 0.0001), treatment need dental caries (P = 0.049), edentulous status (P = 0.009), prosthetic complete full denture (P = 0.0001), dental knowledge (P = 0.0001), use of tooth brush and paste (P = 0.0001) and daily interval times of tooth brushing, but no difference between orodental problems in two groups. According to the results, both elderly home residents and non-residents need attention to their orodental health situation, which should be done through the promotion of dental health care.