Abstract

BACKGROUND: Oral frailty (OF) is a risk factor for physical frailty and mortality and strongly predicts the need for long-term care in the community-dwelling elderly. Our previous exploratory study of singing habit afforded underpinnings for examining its potential role in OF prevention and indicated a need for conducting a large-scale questionnaire survey.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the OF awareness levels of Japanese general adults, to investigate the associations of singing habit with OF and oral health literary-related factors, and to characterize singing habit.

METHODS: A nationwide, internet, self-completed questionnaire survey in 700 Japanese general adults in their twenties to eighties (350 males and 350 females; median age: 55.0 years; range [20-89 years]).

RESULTS: The present study revealed that the vast majority (83.5%) of Japanese general adults have “very low/low” OF awareness levels. The study disclosed significant associations of OF with the number of teeth present and oral health literacy scores (P<0.001 each) but failed to demonstrate a statistically significant association of singing habit with OF prevention, presumably due to a diversity of negative factors [e.g., the high proportion (57.7%) of “nonsingers” among all responders].

CONCLUSION: The vast majority of surveyed Japanese general adults had very low/low OF awareness levels, suggesting a need for improving current anti-OF programs to increase these levels through a novel, unconventional approach. Singing habit failed to show a significant association with OF prevention. Nearly half of all responders were nonsingers, inferring that surveyed Japanese general adults were not eligible for the precise assessment of the potential OF-preventing effect of singing habit.

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