Assessment of oral health problems and oral hygiene practices among palliative care patients using a new tool: A pilot study

Abstract

Introduction: This research paper is a cross-sectional study that aims to estimate the prevalence of oral health problems among adult patients in palliative care, as well as to investigate the oral hygiene practices of palliative care patients in Brunei Darussalam. Patients and methods: In this study, the Oral Palliative Care and Assessment and Referral tool (OPCAR) along with a 15–item questionnaire were utilized as reliable tools for measurements. All palliative care patients who had been assessed in this study were invited to participate. A total of 90 palliative care patients were invited to participate and 73 patient data were used for the subsequent data analysis. Results: The three most common problems among in palliative care patients were saliva, lips, and teeth category. Fisher’s exact test identified there was a significantly higher teeth-related problems (teeth caries, fracture, broken root stumps) in non-denture wearing patients as compared with denture wearing patients. However, other associations between denture wearing to oral hygiene was of little significance. Conclusions: Using the normal approximation sample method, it was revealed that almost all the participants were eligible to be referred to the dental clinic for at least one oral problem.