Evaluation of the quality of life before and after rehabilitation with dental implants: a pilot study

Abstract

Introduction The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines quality of life as “an individual's perception of their position (…) and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns” [1]. It is also known that dental implants restore function, aesthetics and phonetics, factors that, in turn, influence quality of life [2]. The Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) is used to assess oral health self-perception [3]. This pilot study was aimed to evaluate and compare the patient’s quality of life, before and after oral rehabilitation with dental implants. Materials and methods After study approval by the Ethics Committee of Egas Moniz, CRL, and following the informed consent, a validated Portuguese version of the OHIP, in its short-form (OHIP-14), was applied in order to allow the profiling of socio-demographic and oral health characteristics of the patients, as well as to measure their self-perception. Data analysis was performed by using descriptive and inferential statistics methodologies. In the later, a significance level of 5% was established. Results A total of 23 patients, from the Egas Moniz Dental Clinic (EMDC), designated for rehabilitation with dental implants, with a mean age of 51.9 (±15.5) years, were included in the study. The sample was characterised, predominantly, by females, married, with an active status and a higher level of education. From those, 14 patients were evaluated before and after rehabilitation with dental implants. The overall OHIP-14 mean score changed from 18.8 (±11.0) to 2.5 (±2.1). Before rehabilitation the highest OHIP-14 subscale score was the one related to the “psychological discomfort” domain. An improvement of the quality of life was observed not only for the overall OHIP-14 index score (median decreased from 16.5 to 2.0) but also for each of the OHIP domains: “functional limitation” (2.5–1.0, p = .012), “physical pain” (3.5–0.0, p = .001), “psychological discomfort” (5.0–0.5, p = .002), “physical disability” (3.0–0.0, p = .003), “psychological disability” (2.5–0.0, p = .002), “social disability” (1.0–0.0, p = .006) and “handicap” (1.0–0.0, p = .007). Discussion and conclusions There were significant improvements on the patient’s quality of life through rehabilitation with dental implants, as noted by the decrease in measured self-perception scores before and after rehabilitation. The changes were identified for all of the seven OHIP-14 domain scores indicating an overall improvement in the patient’s quality of life.