Oral impacts and their association with tooth loss in Sri Lankan adults

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of oral impacts and the association between tooth loss and oral impacts in Sri Lankan adults. Basic Research Design: A cross-sectional study where the data were collected by means of a pre-tested interviewer administered questionnaire and an oral examination. Participants: 916 >= 40 year olds from the Colombo district. Main outcome measures: Oral impacts were assessed using a validated Sinhalese translation of the Oral Health Impact Profile-14. Results: The prevalence of oral impacts was 27%. The most commonly reported impacts were in the domain of physical pain: "pain" and "uncomfortable to eat". Of the 14 oral impacts, tooth loss was associated with only 6 impacts. According to the multiple logistic regression analysis, the prevalence of oral impacts was independently associated with the number of missing teeth, missing anterior teeth and the number of natural occluding premolar pairs. Conclusions: The number of missing teeth and the position of teeth were associated with the reporting of oral impacts in this sample of adults. As the position of missing teeth was related to oral impacts, it could be concluded that all missing teeth do not have the same adverse effect on the physical and psychosocial well-being of the subjects.