Page 51 - Petelin, Ana. 2024. Ed. Zdravje delovno aktivnih in starejših odraslih | Health of the Working-Age and Older Adults. Zbornik prispevkov z recenzijo | Proceedings. Koper: University of Primorska Press

The subjective assessment of OHRQoL is also important because it affects
the actions individuals take with regard to their health, which in turn is re-
flected in their health status. Finally, the assessment of OHRQoL is also impor-
tant with regard to inequalities in access to dental care (Sischo et al., 2011). Re-
search on OHRQoL is important to identify groups at increased risk of poor
oral health (Kragt et al., 2016).

Methods
The data were collected as part of the cross-sectional survey »National Oral
Health Survey of Adults in Slovenia in 2019«. A representative sample of 3,200
adults aged 18 to 74 years was included. The survey was conducted using the
EGOHID questionnaire. The adults included in the study received an invita-
tion to participate in the survey at a home address with a password to access
the online questionnaire. For participants over the age of 44, a written ques-
tionnaire was enclosed with the notification letter. The survey took place in 51
spring 2019 and participants received a further postal reminder during the sur-
vey period.
The data collected in the survey were analysed in »Microsoft Excel 2016 «.
The data were weighted by gender, age and education, taking into account age
groups of one year. The weighted data per sample and population were ana-
lysed using the computer software »IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows«, version
21.0 (IBM, 2020).
The OHRQoL questionnaire contained nine questions on the frequen-
cy of dental problems when eating, the frequency of difficulties in performing oral health-related quality of life in the adult population of slovenia in 2019
daily tasks, the frequency of dental pain, the frequency of painful gums/mouth
sore and the frequency of avoiding conversations, the frequency of avoiding
social activities and the frequency of embarrassment about the appearance of
teeth. Respondents could choose between five response options on a 5-point
Likert scale (never, almost never, occasionally, often, very often). We defined
occasionally, often and very often as the most frequent occurrence of limita-
tions. Only people who answered all 6 questions on quality of life were includ-
ed in the further analysis.
The interpretation of the results is based on the number and percentage
of people in the selected categories according to demographic variables such
as gender, age, education and living environment. The distributions of propor-
tions between different categories were tested using the chi-square (χ ) test and
2
the CCP test (Column Comparison Proportion test) to compare the propor-
tions between different groups.

Results
After the exclusion factor, which was taken into account in the further data
analysis, the final sample size was 1,164 people. There were slightly more men
(50.9%), and the age group with the most participants was between 35 and 54