Oral Health and Successful Ageing - The PROS and dPROS: A Scoping Review

This review aimed to determine how successful aging is operationalized in the oral heath context, and to determine the use of Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) and Dental Patient Reported Outcomes (dPROs).

A scoping review was conducted and was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021232668). The reporting of the review followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) framework.

Five databases were searched and 1288 potentially relevant publications were identified. A total of 263 'effective' studies informed this review. Most studies were observational in nature (94.3%, 250) and the majority were cross-sectional (52.5%, 139). Most studies (89.4%, 235) were unidimensional in their operationalization of successful aging. Successful aging was mainly operationalized in terms of the 'biomedical model' (81.4%, 214) with limited consideration of psychological and social dimensions/models. Regarding biological health, commonly considered components were 'nutrition' (33.6%, 72/214) and 'longevity' (28.9%, 62/214). PROs were most frequently employed in the assessment of nutrition (88.8%, 64/72), albeit in response to standardized assessments. Regarding the psychological dimension (28.9%, 76), 'cognition' was most frequently assessed (69.7%, 53/76) - typically by the use of PROs (83.0%, 44/53). Social dimensions were only rarely considered (1.5%, 4). In terms of oral health - a range of aspects were considered including: 'number of teeth' (58.2%, 153 - dPROs (31.6%, 49/155)); and prosthesis use (30.4%, 80 - dPROS (31.3%, 25/80)).

The operationalization of successful aging in oral health is typically unidimensional and focuses primarily on the 'biomedical model'. PROs and dPROS are both widely used in the assessment of successful aging in the oral health context.