• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.461-467
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to find out the degree of self-consciousness of oral malodor, the status of oral hygiene care, some oral examination factors, and measurement values of malodor compounds through conduction oral examination and questionnaire survey, and measuring volatile malodor compounds by instrumental analysis. The data were collected from 155 patients visiting a dental clinic by using a self-administered questionnaire, conducting oral examination for halitosis, and measuring malodor compounds with Oral Chroma. The rate of recognizing their breath as 'somewhat bad' were 80.0% for the female patients and 74.3% for the male, and, however, 14.3% of the male recognized their breath as 'very bad' while 18.8% of the female did not recognized oral malodor, showing statistically significant difference between gender(p=0.004). The average concentrations of volatile sulfur compounds measured by Oral Chroma were 1.65 ng/10 ml for hydrogen sulfide, 1.71 ng/10 ml for methyl mercaptan and 1.66 ng/10 ml for dimethyl sulfide, on the average, respectively, exceeding malodor threshold levels of all 3 compounds, and were significantly higher in the male group than those in the female, also exceeding all threshold levels except hydrogen sulfide values of the female group. The type of oral malodor was the most prevalent for Type I as 23.2%, followed by Type V, Type IV, Type II whileas Type I and Type IV in the female as 30.6% and 25.9% respectively, showing statistically significant difference by gender(p=0.006). The correlations among oral examination indices was the highest between tongue fur score and simplified oral hygiene index, followed by a significant reverse correlation between the number of fixed prosthodontic teeth and the number of dental caries(p=0.000).