Orthodontic treatment and its impact on oral health-related quality of life in Brazilian adolescents

Abstract

Objective: To assess whether Brazilian adolescents who had completed orthodontic treatment had lower levels of impacts on their oral health-related quality of life.

Design: A cross-sectional study.

Setting: The study was conducted in public and private secondary schools in Bauru-SP, Brazil.

Participants: 1675 randomly selected adolescents aged between 15 and 16 years.

Methods: Adolescents were clinically examined using the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (IOTN). Two oral health-related quality of life measures, namely the Oral Impacts on Daily Performance (OIDP) and the shortened version of the Oral Health Impacts Profile (OHIP-14) were used to assess adolescents’ oral health-related impacts. Multiple logistic regression was used in the data analysis.

Results: A response rate of 100% was obtained. Adolescents who had completed orthodontic treatment had fewer oral health-related impacts compared to the other two groups. They were 1.85 times (95% CI 1.30 to 2.62) less likely to have an oral health impact on their daily life activities than adolescents currently under treatment or 1.43 (1.01 to 2.02) times than those who never had treatment.

Conclusions: Adolescents who had completed orthodontic treatment had a better oral health-related quality of life than those currently under treatment or those who never had treatment.

Keywords:

• Adolescents
• IOTN index
• oral health-related quality of life
• orthodontic treatment
• orthodontic treatment need

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Fundação Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazilian Government, for their financial support.

Contributors

Dr Cesar de Oliveira and Professor Aubrey Sheiham both met the criteria for authorship based on substantial contribution to conception and design, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, revising it critically for important intellectual content and on final approval of the version to be published. Dr Cesar de Oliveira is the guarantor.