Awareness on Oral Health Changes at Menopause and the Oral Healthcare Seeking Behaviors of Menopausal Women in a Selected Educational Institution

Abstract

During menopause, a woman experiences hormonal changes that can affect the whole body, oral health-related problems like Xerostomia, increased dental caries, changes in taste, gingivitis, Burning mouth syndrome, periodontitis, and osteoporotic jaws. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between the awareness of oral health changes of menopausal women and their oral health-seeking behaviors. The study employed the Descriptive- correlational, and Comparative designs through the use of the Frequency, Percentages, Mean, Standard Deviation, Kruskal Wallis, and Mann- Whitney Tests for statistical analysis. The study included 42 menopausal employees who were aged 40 – 65 years and above of a selected educational institution. They were recruited through Purposive Sampling and were requested to answer an online questionnaire via Google Forms. The total Awareness level of the participants had a mean score of 6.833 with a Standard Deviation of 2.76667, which can be interpreted as an average awareness level. For the Oral healthcare-seeking behaviors of the respondents, it showed a mean score of 3.4262 with a Standard Deviation of 0.46699, which can be interpreted as a good level of behaviors. The results of this study conclude that there is no difference in the awareness and behaviors of the menopausal women except in terms of medications which had a p-value of 0.009 which means that there was a significant difference between them. The awareness of oral health changes and oral health-seeking behaviors of menopausal women have a low positive significant relationship to each other. The researchers recommend that a new study be conducted by future investigators in a larger population of menopausal women in order to yield greater statistical reliability and validity.

Keywords: menopause, behavior, awareness, oral health, women