Assessing the association between unstimulated whole salivary flow rate (UWSFR) and oral health status among healthy adult subjects: A cross-sectional study

Background: This study aimed to test the association between the unstimulated whole salivary flow rate (UWS-FR) and the oral health status represented by dental and gingival status among healthy adult subjects. Material and Methods: This work was a cross-sectional study of patients attending the undergraduate dental clinics at AlFarabi College for Dentistry and Nursing, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The study population consisted of 502 systemically healthy adults aged 18-35 years. UWSFR was collected for all study participants and expressed as ml/min. Oral health status was estimated using the Community Periodontal Index (CPI) and the Oral Hygiene Index-Simplified (OHI-S). The number of decayed teeth and the number of available teeth were also calculated to evaluate dental status. Results: The mean UWSFR was 0.42 (+/- 0.3) ml/min, and the male participants significantly had more UWSFR than the females. UWSFR was significantly affected by CPI, OHI-S, body mass index (BMI) and gender as indicated in the univariate analysis. However, multiple regression analysis revealed that only gender was a significant predictor of UWSFR. The male subjects were shown to have a higher average of 0.133 ml/min than the females. Conclusions: High BMI scores, moderate-to-severe gingivitis and low level of oral hygiene increased UWSFR. However, further longitudinal studies are recommended to test the role of salivary cytokine levels to validate the exact association between the UWSFR and the oral health status.