Determinants of Systemic Diseases amongst Periodontitis Patients in Suva, Fiji

Introduction: Periodontitis develops through opportunistic infection which usually occurs when there is an imbalance between the oral biofilm and host defense’s and has been connected with various systemic diseases such as heart diseases, diabetes, renal diseases, respiratory diseases etc. Due to lack of previous study, this study is aimed to describe the determinants of systemic diseases amongst periodontitis patients in Suva, Fiji. Methodology: This retrospective descriptive study was carried out in the FNU Dental Clinics, Suva, Fiji using the periodontitis patient clinical records from 1st January 2013 to 31st December 2014. Periodontitis patients with or without self-reported systemic disease history were included in this study. Patient demographic variables were collected and Binary logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratio with their 95% Confidence Intervals to define any association between dependent variable and independent variables. A p-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The results of the study showed that the odds of having systemic disease were 3.5 times higher in 40-64- year-old patients than in the 15-39-year-old periodontitis patients (OR 3.5, 95% CI 1.98-6.09, p=<0.001). Male periodontitis patients reported with 42% systemic disease and females reported with 58% systemic disease. Systemic disease was higher in females than males; however, this was not statistically significant. The odds of having systemic disease were 1.9 times higher in the Fijians of Indian Descent than among the I-Taukei Fijians (OR 1.9, 95% CI: 1.17-3.11, p=0.026). Conclusion: The study concluded that systemic disease was the most in 40-64-year-old Fijians of Indian decent periodontitis patients, this was statistically significant. Female periodontitis patients showed higher presence of systemic diseases than the male periodontitis patients; however this was not statistically significant.