Abstract
This study aimed at assessing the relationship between dental pain and the reason for using dental services and oral health quality of life in people aged 50 to 74 years in southern Brazil. A cross-sectional population-based study was conducted with 720 individuals aged 50 to 74 years, living in three health districts in the city of Porto Alegre. Dental impacts on daily life and sociodemographic data were assessed using structured interviews. The Oral Impacts on Daily Performance - OIDP instrument was used to measure oral impacts. The information was analyzed by Poisson regression with robust variance adjustment, taking into account cluster sampling. Dental pain was present in 32.5% of those reporting an oral impact on their daily activities. Dental pain most frequently affected talking (37.6%), cleaning teeth and gums (37.0%) and enjoying the companionship of people (36.5%). After adjustments to the multivariate analysis, the reason for dental visits due to dental pain was found to have a high impact on daily activities [RP 1.68 (1.11 - 2.54].
Highlights
This study found that visiting the dentist because of pain increased the prevalence of high dental impact on daily activities of individuals by 68%, highlighting the role of dental pain in the oral health-related quality of life of individuals
Previous research has shown that dental pain and functional limitation may have a stronger impact on Oral Health Related Quality of Life than clinical conditions.[23]
The findings of this study showed the importance of dental pain in seeking dental services and its high impact on the Oral Health Related Quality of Life of individuals
Summary
There is an association between dental pain and discomfort, loss of working hours and impairment of social functions.[1,2] Pain is a common symptom or subjective expression of the oral condition of individuals, and may affect daily activities.[3,4] It is reported as a major cause of psychosocial, physical and economic impact.[5,6] Talking, eating, and cleaning teeth are the daily activities most often affected by pain,[5,7] difficulties in sleeping, socializing and working have been mentioned.[5,6] Dental pain is the most common[4,8,9] orofacial pain; its estimated prevalence ranges from 7% to 66%, affecting 11% of adults aged 50 to 59 years.[10] Dental pain is one of the main reasons for visiting the dentist.[11,12,13] This is not surprising, because dental pain is the main cause of impairment of most daily activities,[3] influencing the use of dental services[11] and affecting the quality of life of individuals.[6,14]
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