Zainab Assy

173 Oral dryness and use of dry-mouth interventions Table 6: The BI-scores of Sjögren’s syndrome patients who report the use of a specific intervention for the relieve of dry mouth complaints versus patients who do not use that intervention. Data are expressed as mean scores with standard deviation (SD). Intervention BI-score of patients who use intervention (mean ± SD) BI-score of patients who do not use intervention (mean ± SD) Drinking water 7.4 ± 2.1** 3.9 ± 3.5 Moistening the lips 7.1 ± 2.5 7.0 ± 2.4 Drinking tea 6.8 ± 2.3 7.5 ± 2.7 Rinsing of the mouth 8.0 ± 1.8** 6.1 ± 2.7 Chewing gum 7.1 ± 2.5 7.0 ± 2.5 Drinking small volumes 7.7 ± 1.8 6.4 ± 2.8 Using mouth gel 7.6 ± 2.1 6.6 ± 2.6 Eating fruit 7.6 ± 1.9 6.7 ± 2.7 Using mouth spray 7.5 ± 1.5 6.9 ± 2.7 Drinking coffee 7.2 ± 1.8 7.0 ± 2.7 Sucking sour candies 7.7 ± 2.3 6.9 ± 2.5 * p <0.05 compared to BI-score of patient who do not use the intervention, MannWhitney U test ** p <0.01 compared to BI-score of patients who do not use the intervention, MannWhitney U test Multivariate analysis of the association of oral dryness and patients’ discomfort with dry‑mouth interventions strategies In Table 7, the odds ratios for the dry-mouth interventions are reported. Interestingly, general interventions such as “drinking water’’, “rinsing the mouth’’ and “drinking small volumes’’ had significant odds ratios for respectively the RODI scores of the posterior palate, anterior and posterior tongue areas. This result indicates that patients having more severe dryness at these intra-oral regions would more likely use these general dry-mouth interventions. For “using a mouth gel’’, there was only a significant association with the RODI scores of the inside cheeks. As for “eating fruit’’, there was an association with the total XI score, indicating that overall oral dryness could influence the use of the dry-mouth intervention “eating fruit’’. Only “drinking coffee’’ had significant associations with two intra-oral regions, the inside cheeks and the floor of the mouth. However, the RODI score of the inside cheeks was below 1 (0.25), while the RODI score of the floor of the mouth was larger than 1 (2.82). This indicates that higher RODI scores for the floor of the mouth and lower scores of the inside cheeks will probably affect drinking coffee by 8

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