Method: The study is part of a prospective intervention among randomly selected DM2 patients (n=186), Istanbul, Turkey. The data analyzed were Community Periodontal Need Index (CPI), HbA1c (glycated haemoglobin, Tooth-brushing (TB) and TBSES. Data was collected initially and at the end of intervention. Participants were allocated randomly to Health Coaching(HC:intervention) (n=77) and education (ED:control) (n=102) groups. Descriptive statistics, spearman rank correlation, cross-tabulation and MANOVA analysis were applied.
Results: At baseline, there was no statistical difference between HC and ED groups [HbA1c:7.5% vs. 7.8%); CPIMEAN: 2.3±1.2 vs.2.4±1.5; TBSES MEAN:18.3±11.8 vs.17.8±11.7;TB≥1/day: 66% vs. 53%), (p>0.05). At post-intervention, HC group had significantly lower HbA1c (6.7%) and CPIMEAN (0.6±0.9) than the ED group [7.7%, CPIMEAN: 1.9±1.5), (p<0.01). HC group also had significantly improved TBSESMEAN(29±8.8)and TB≥1/day (87%) compared to ED group (TBSESMEAN:21±11.2,TB≥1/day:71%),(p<0.01). TBSES was highly correlated with TB among both HC (rs=0.7) and ED (rs=0.7) groups, (p<0.01). Improvement at CPI (from baseline to the post-intervention) was positively correlated with both TBSES (rs=0.4) and TB (rs=0.4) among HC group (p<0.01) but not among ED group (p>0.05).Significant reduction at HbA1c (from baseline to the post-intervention) was significantly correlated only with improvement at TBSES among HC group (F=4.6, p=0.03).
Conclusion: The present findings may imply that TBSES has a significantly higher impact on improvement of oral health and better management of diabetes among HC group compared to ED group. Thus may underline the need for integration of TBSES by health coaching approach as a common framework for the holistic promotion of diabetes and oral health to improve quality of life for patients with DM2.
The project is externally supported by FDI.