Prevalence of Oral Mucosal Diseases in Older Adults in Mainland China: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

Oral mucosal disease (OMD) is a public health challenge globally, but the epidemiological findings in older adults have been inconsistent in China. Thus, this meta-analysis was carried out to explore the prevalence of OMD and its moderating factors in this population. An electronic literature search was conducted of both international (PubMed, PsycINFO, and EMBASE) and Chinese (China National Knowledge Infrastructure and WanFang) databases from inception to November 1, 2019. The Der–Simonian and Laird random effects model was used to synthesize the prevalence of OMD and its 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Twenty-four studies covering 23,653 older adults were included. The pooled prevalence of OMD was 23% (95% confidence interval: 17.9%–29.0%) Subgroup analyses and meta-analysis revealed that the prevalence of OMD was significantly associated with the reporting sampling, year of publication, and survey (all p values <0.05). This meta-analysis found that the prevalence of OMD among older adults in mainland China was significantly high. Early detection and effective intervention of OMD in older adults have public health and clinical importance.