Association Between Stress and Number of Teeth Among Middle-Aged Women

Objectives: Perceived mental stress over time is sparsely investigated in the scientific literature. However, what has been discovered is that it affects the health in different ways. The aims of the study were to describe perceived mental stress among middle-aged women over a 36-year period, and to investigate the association between stress and number of teeth.
Methods: This study includes 3 cross-sectional (1968 N=746, 1980 N=432, 2004 N=500) surveys of 38- and 50-year old women included in the Prospective Population Study of Women in Gothenburg, Sweden. This was a combined medical and dental examination of women, including radiological surveys. Variables included in the present analysis were number of teeth and perceived mental stress. Stress was categorized into 3 groups: minimal=never experienced stress, medium=experienced one period of stress in life, high=experienced several periods of stress the last 5 years or have lived under constant stress the last 1-5 years.
Results: It was shown that perceived mental stress increased significantly over time, especially from 1968 to 2004 and 1980 to 2004 for both 38- and 50-year olds. In 1968 17 % of the 50-year old women belonged to the high stress group, and 53 % had minimal level of mental stress. These numbers were reversed in 2004, with 53 % who had experienced high stress levels and 18 % who had never experienced any mental stress.
No statistically significant association was found between number of teeth and perceived mental stress.
Conclusions: It has been a dramatic increase in the number of women who reported mental stress in 2004 compared to 1968 and 1980, for both age groups. Perceived mental stress had no impact on the number of teeth among the 38- and 50-year old women.