Impact of severity of tooth loss on oral-health-related quality of life among dental patients

Background: Tooth loss has a negative impact on the person's life so this study was done to assess the impact of tooth loss on oral-health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in adult patients seeking dental care in private university dental clinics using Arabic version of 14-item Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) questionnaire in Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 152 patients seeking dental care at a private university dental clinics in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia. A structured and close-ended OHIP-14 questionnaire was self-administered by the study participants. Descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, and Spearman's correlation tests were applied to the data. Results: Patients with categories 1-5, 6-10, and >10 teeth loss showed a mean OHIP-14 scores of 10.51 +/- 10.36, 13.46 +/- 10.06, and 21.46 +/- 14.41, respectively. A statistically significant difference in OHIP-14 score was observed among different categories of tooth loss (P = 0.005). Participants with >10 teeth loss showed significantly higher OHIP-14 score compared with 1-5 and 6-10 teeth loss categories (P < 0.05). Teeth loss significantly affected the functional limitation (P = 0.000) and social disability (P = 0.044) subscales. Conclusion: Tooth loss adversely affected the OHRQoL among the dental patients. As the severity of teeth lost increased, the OHIP-14 score also increased with higher oral health impairments.