स्वास्थ्य देखभाल संचार जर्नल खुला एक्सेस

अमूर्त

Presence and Types of Systemic Diseases among Patients with Periodontitis in Suva, Fiji

Anjali Thomas*, Leenu Raju Maimanuku, Masoud Mohammadnezhad and Sabiha Khan

Objectives: Periodontitis is an infection which is caused by micro-organisms like Porphyromonas gingivalis. Periodontitis patients can have one or more systemic diseases such as heart diseases, diabetes, renal diseases, respiratory diseases etc. Due to lack of study in Fiji, this study is aimed to determine the presence and types of systemic diseases among patients with periodontitis in Suva, Fiji.

Methods: This is a descriptive study on periodontitis patients with complete self-reported systemic disease history carried out in two dental clinics operated by the Fiji National University. Periodontitis patients with or without self-reported systemic disease history were included in this study. Patients without periodontitis were excluded from this study. The patient clinical records are recorded from 1st January 2013 to 31st December 2014. SPSS was used to analysis the data and all the categorical variables were presented by numbers and percentages.

Results: The total number of periodontitis patients who reported having at least one type of systemic diseases was 35.5% (n=131). The most common types of diseases were heart disease 55.7% ~ 56% (n=73) and diabetes 45% (n=59). The age group 40-64-year-old periodontitis patients showed the highest number of heart diseases and diabetes, (68.1%) and (79.3%), respectively. Amongst all the ethnic groups, the Fijians of Indian Descent showed the highest number of heart diseases (49.1%), and the I-Taukei Fijians showed highest number of diabetes (42.4%). The use of tobacco was 39.7%, alcohol was 38.4% and betel-nut was 5.6% among periodontitis patients with heart diseases. And the use of tobacco was 33.9%, alcohol was 39% and betel-nut was 3.4% among periodontitis patients with diabetes mellitus. Severe periodontitis patients showed high percentages of diabetes (50.9%) among the mild periodontitis and moderate periodontitis patients. However, the occurrence of heart diseases was the same, (40.6%) among moderate and severe periodontitis patients.

Conclusion: The study concluded that the number of periodontitis patients with any one type of systemic disease was 35.5%. And the most common types of systemic diseases seen among the periodontitis patients were heart disease and diabetes. Further research studies in future will provide more insight to the association of periodontitis and systemic diseases.