ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
This article is part of the Research TopicChronic Diseases: From Occupational Exposure Assessment to Precision Prevention and Early DiagnosticsView all articles
Prevalence of periodontitis and associated factors among Portuguese Air Force pilot cadets: a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
- Egas Moniz Center for Interdisciplinary Research (CiiEM), Almada, Portugal
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Objectives: To assess the periodontal health, perceived quality of life, and oral health values among Portuguese Air Force (PT-AF) pilot cadets. Methods: This cross-sectional study included cadets from the PT-AF Academy (December 2024–Mar 2025). Participants completed sociodemographic, behavioral, Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14) and Oral Health Values Scale-12 (OHVS-12) questionnaires, followed by full-mouth periodontal examinations to compute Periodontal Inflamed Surface Area (PISA) and Periodontal Epithelial Surface Area (PESA), and classify periodontal status according to the 2017 European Federation of Periodontology/American Academy of Periodontology (EFP/AAP) criteria. Descriptive and inferential analyses were conducted, with a significance level set at p ≤ 0.05. Results: Among 90 participants (72% of the contingent; mean age 21.1±1.7years), 22.2% (95% confidence intervale [CI]: 14.6-31.6) had periodontitis and 22.2% (95% CI: 14.6-31.6) gingivitis. Only 34.4% reported regular interproximal cleaning. Periodontitis was significantly associated with smoking habits (p=0.029) and was more prevalent among 5th-year cadets (p=0.002). No significant differences were found in OHIP-14 or OHVS-12 scores by periodontal status, except for the "Appearance and Health" OHVS-12 domain, where those with periodontitis scored higher (p=0.034). Age correlated positively with PISA(p=0.003). Conclusions: Despite their young age and military fitness, nearly half of PT-AF cadets presented clinical signs of periodontal disease. The findings underscore the importance of structured and integrating oral health surveillance and preventive strategies within military occupation health programs.
Keywords: Periodontal disease, Military Personnel, Portuguese Air Force, Aviation occupational health, Oral health-related quality of life, Oral Health Values
Received: 13 Oct 2025; Accepted: 14 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Martins, Botelho, Júdice, Proença, Mendes and Machado. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Vanessa Machado, vmachado@egasmoniz.edu.pt
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