Table 5.

Summary of volunteers’ sex, medication, dental status, mouth behaviour and unstimulated saliva flow groupings in both studies.

	Sex				Medication				Dental Status				Mouth Behaviour						Saliva Flow Categories
	Male		Female		Yes		No		Good		Reduced		Chewer		Cruncher		Other		Low		Medium		High
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Pilot Study
Total (n = 84)	31	37	53	63	19	23	65	77	64	76	20	24	42	50	33	39	9	11	27	32	28	33	29	35
YA (n = 42)	12	29	30	71	0	0	42	100	41	98	1	2	23	55	12	20	7	16	8	19	14	33	20	48
OA (n = 42)	19	45	23	55	19	45	23	55	23	55	19	45	19	45	21	50	2	5	19	45	14	33	9	21
Main Study
Total (n = 70)	27	39	43	61	18	26	52	74	59	84	11	16	29	43	25	37	13	19	23	33	23	33	24	34
YA (n = 38)	13	34	25	66	0	0	38	100	38	100	0	0	16	42	15	39	7	18	8	21	15	39	15	39
OA (n = 32)	14	44	18	56	18	56	14	44	21	66	11	34	13	45	10	34	6	21	15	47	8	25	9	28

‘n’ and ‘%’ reflect number and percentage in each contributing group. YA: younger adult and OA: older adult. Mouth behaviour ‘other’ reflects “smooshers”/sucker in the pilot study and “smooshers” in the main study. Missing data for mouth behaviour (main study n = 3). In both studies dental status is significantly associated with medication (pilot study: p = 0.006; main study: p < 0.0001) and is independent of mouth behaviour category (pilot study: p = 0.95; main study: p = 0.97). Saliva flow groupings are derived from unstimulated salivary flow and categories are defined by tertiles with mL/min range for each category (pilot study: low saliva flow: 0.04–0.53 mL/min; medium saliva flow: 0.53–0.77 mL/min; high saliva flow: 0.77–2.18 mL/min and main study: low saliva flow: 0.23–0.58 mL/min; medium saliva flow: 0.58–0.95 mL/min; high saliva flow: 0.95–1.52 mL/min).