RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DENTAL AESTHETIC INDEX AND ORAL HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG PATIENTS

Abstract

Background: Good oral hygiene indicates good lifestyle maintenance among people. To measure oral hygiene, various indices are used. These indices set out the criteria to evaluate the abnormal conditions that deviate from the normal ones. A patient's psychosocial view is very important in the aspect of planning a treatment that would benefit them aesthetically, socially and functionally. Few patients might have severe malocclusion but least bothered about it whereas few might have mild occlusal discrepancies but tend to feel very cautious about that hindering their facial aesthetics. Perceptions of treatment modalities among patients vary from one another as few Dental aesthetic Index (DAI) covers up both the aesthetic and clinical aspects of occlusion, thus assessing the social acceptability among the population, indirectly. Since DAI has been used in conditions that do not restrict the economical and cultural perceptions among the global population, it is considered as a user friendly index. Oral Health Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) of an individual, is assessed by Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) questionnaires that not only aids in improving malocclusion of the patient, but also enhances their psychosocial well being, for the betterment of life and society. The DAI is an appraisal or judgment in the views of a dentist, whereas the OHIP-14 is an evaluation that's purely from the patients perspective.

Aim: The main objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between DAI and OHRQoL among students.

Material and methodology: A university based setting was conducted. A sample size of 300 patients aged between 15 to 25 years of age were taken in as the study population. The OHIP-14 questionnaire consisting of 14 close ended questions was circulated to the study participants online through Google forms. The DAI index was recorded in Google forms by the surveyor of the study. The study consisted of both male and female participants aged 15 to 25 years. To eliminate bias,  a randomized sampling method was employed. The data was collected over a period of 2 months. Chi square test was applied to find the association between DAI and OHRQoL.

Results: Results depicts the correlation between Dental Aesthetic index (DAI) and the Oral  Health Related Quality of Life (OHIP), under definite malocclusion: 3% with never as response, 6.54% with hardly ever as response, 9.62% as occasionally, 0.38% as fairly often and 3.85% as very often. Under normal or minor malocclusion: 0.77% with never as response, 20.77% with hardly ever as response, 13.46% as occasionally, 23.46% as fairly often and 7.69% as very often. Under severe malocclusion: 8.85% as hardly ever for a response. Under very severe or handicapping malocclusion: 1.54%with hardly ever as response. ( p= 0.13> 0.05; non significant)                      

Conclusion: This study shows that correlations between the DAI and the OHRQoL suggests that the DAI grade cannot be used to accurately predict the patients' OHRQoL