Subjective oral dryness and stimulated salivary flow rate in medicated patients in chronic severe psychiatric patients

Abstract

Objectives : The purpose of the study is to investigate the xerostomia in the chronic severe psychiatric patients in Korea because there were few reports on xerostomia in the psychiatric patients.Methods : The subjects were 61 psychiatric patients in the mental hospital by convenience cluster sampling. A self-reported symptom questionnaire was filled out by the three researchers on the basis of medical records by the informed consent. The stimulated salivary flow rate of the patients was measured by saliva sampling.

Old Age, Female Sex, and Psychotropic Medications Predict Hyposalivation But Not Heart Rate Variability

“…1 Dry mouth is even more prevalent among patients with mental illness, with up to 41%-76% of bipolar disorder; 35%-47% of major depressive disorder; and 39%-69% of schizophrenia patients reporting having suffered from dry mouth. [1][2][3][4][5] Underlying mechanisms for the increased prevalence of dry mouth among psychiatric patients may result from anticholinergic action of psychotropic prescriptions and/or psychological symptoms per se insofar as anxiety has been re-ported to be a risk factor for dry mouth. 4,6 Despite such high prevalence, dry mouth symptoms are often overlooked in comparison to other psychiatric symptoms in patients with mental illness.…”

“…Xerostomia (dry mouth) is a frequently encountered symptom in clinical practice with an estimated pooled prevalence of 22% in general population according to a meta-analysis [ 1 ]. Dry mouth is even more prevalent among patients with mental illness, with up to 41%–76% of bipolar disorder; 35%–47% of major depressive disorder; and 39%–69% of schizophrenia patients reporting having suffered from dry mouth [ 1 - 5 ].…”