Abstract
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the perceived impact of dental caries and dental pain on oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) among preschool children and their families. A cross-sectional study was conduct with 843 preschool children in Campina Grande, Brazil. Parents/caregivers answered a questionnaire on socio-demographic information, their child’s general/oral health and history of dental pain. The Brazilian version of the Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale was administered to determine the perceived impact of caries and dental pain on OHRQoL. The children underwent an oral examination. Logistic regression for complex sample was used to determine associations between the dependent and independent variables (OR: Odds ratio, α = 5%). The independents variables that had a p-value <0.20 in the bivariate analysis were selected for the multivariate model. The prevalence of dental caries and dental pain was 66.3% and 9.4%, respectively. Order of birth of the child, being the middle child (OR: 10.107, 95%CI: 2.008-50.869) and youngest child (OR: 3.276, 95%CI: 1.048-10.284) and dental pain (OR: 84.477, 95%CI: 33.076-215.759) were significant predictors of the perceived impact on OHRQOL for children. Poor perception of oral health was significant predictor of the perceived impact on OHRQOL for family (OR=7.397, 95%CI: 2.190-24.987). Dental caries was not associated with a perceived impact on the ORHQoL of either the children or their families. However, order of child birth and dental pain were indicators of impact of OHRQoL on preschool children and poor perception of oral health was indicators of impact on families.
Highlights
Dental caries is one of the most prevalent chronic childhood diseases worldwide and is a major problem both from the public health perspective and for individual families who have to deal with a young child suffering from dental pain [1]
Perceived impact on oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) was greater among the children (32.5%) than the families (26.3%)
Other studies of different age group [4] and using different evaluation tools [5, 35] reported that dental pain is the most frequent specific cause of perceived impact on OHRQoL [36]. These results demonstrated that dental pain can be the most important factor, even in the presence of high severity of dental caries, about the perceived impact on quality of life, regardless of age and questionnaires used
Summary
Dental caries (tooth decay) is one of the most prevalent chronic childhood diseases worldwide and is a major problem both from the public health perspective and for individual families who have to deal with a young child suffering from dental pain [1]. This condition often goes untreated in young children [2]. Carious lesions are among the major oral health problems of preschool child, even though if in this age group, children lose the first set of teeth. Measuring OHRQoL can make an important contribution by providing more data on this issue to help guide the oral health policies [4,5]
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