The Global Impact of Edentulism: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND: The evidence to describe the consequences of edentulism has been limited. This systematic review aimed to identify, appraise and summarise the evidence available to describe the broad health and socio-economic impacts of edentulism experienced by individuals living in low-, middle- and high-income countries. METHODS: Searches were carried out on five databases: Scopus, Web of Science, CENTRAL, EMBASE and MEDLINE. Grey literature was searched, in addition to professional recommendations and reference cross-checks. The search was completed on 15th June 2022 and updated on 21st March 2023. Searches were restricted to human studies of community dwelling adults aged ≥18 years. No restrictions were placed on publication date, language, gender or country. Data was independently extracted by two researchers and risk of bias assessment was conducted using the QualSyst Tool. The study was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42022320049). RESULTS: 402 articles were identified from database searches, reference cross-checks and professional recommendations. Title, abstract and full text screening resulted in 32 articles for narrative review. A diverse range of outcomes were identified, including frailty, nutrition, health behaviours, quality of life, mental health and general health conditions. Due to heterogeneity between studies, Synthesis Without Meta-Analysis (SWiM) Guidelines will be used to synthesis the study results. Results from the synthesis using SWiM Guidelines are pending. Despite the inclusion of broad search terms, no relevant studies to explore the impact of edentulism on socio-economic outcomes such as productivity were identified. CONCLUSIONS: There was a lack of high quality interventional evidence to support robust conclusions within this review. Further research to understand the impact of edentulism and establish causal relationships is needed to inform future preventative and treatment strategies. KEY MESSAGES: • Global disease burden of edentulism is high. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that global prevalence of edentulous adults aged ≥60 is 23% (WHO, Oral Health Factsheet, March 2023). • Many of the factors that contribute to edentulism are preventable and distributed inequitably. Understanding the impact of edentulism remains an area of global public health importance.