Subjective Mental Health and Oral Health of Korean Adolescents

Background: This study aimed to assess the status of subjective oral health and mental health among Korean adolescents using data from the 2024 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey (KYRBS), and to examine the independent associations between mental health indicators and oral symptom experiences.Methods: Data were analyzed from the 20th KYRBS, comprising 54,653 adolescents.Subjective oral symptoms were categorized as: (I) tooth pain when consuming hot or cold food/beverages, (II) throbbing or aching tooth pain, and (III) gum pain or bleeding.Mental health variables included perceived stress, feelings of sadness or despair, and loneliness.All analyses accounted for the complex sampling design (weights, stratification, and clustering).Results: Among participants, 49.3% reported experiencing at least one oral symptom in the past year.Mental health issues were prevalent: stress (84.5%), sadness/despair (27.7%), and loneliness (55.6%).Adolescents reporting poor mental health had significantly higher prevalence of oral symptoms.Notably, loneliness showed the strongest association with oral symptoms (odds ratio=1.922,95% confidence interval: 1.8601.985,p0.001).Conclusion: Poor subjective mental health was significantly associated with increased oral symptom experiences among adolescents.These findings underscore the importance of integrated health strategies that concurrently address mental and oral health to support the overall well-being of adolescents.