En jämförelse mellan fyra olika metoder för identifiering av individer med muntorrhet - en pilotstudie

Sammanfattning: There are several ways to identify individuals with dry mouth, but there are few studies made in which the different methods have been compared with each other.The aim of this pilotstudy was to compare different methods for identifying individuals with dry mouth. Fifty individuals aged 50 to 75 years were included in this studie. These where randomly chosen among patients at the dental clinic at Kristianstad University College. Four different salivary measurements were conducted: 1) collection of unstimulated saliva, 2) collection of stimulated saliva, 3) the so called “mirrortest”, and 4) analyse using cottonrolls. The result showed a statistically significant correlation between collection of unstimulated saliva, collection of stimulated saliva and analyse with the help of cottonrolls. There were no statistically significant correlations between the mirrortest and any of the other tests. The statistical correlations between the tests were only obtained at high saivary secretion rates, as the studie had too few participants with low secretion rate to perform any comparisons between the methods at low secretion rates. There is a need for more research concerning standardization of the cottonroll method and to determine it’s values of low secretion rate. However, the overall feeling is that this method, if it’s preformed correctly and with a good scale, can be a suitably alternative for saliva measurments of people who has difficultys conducting the normal salivatests.