Assessing OHRQoL using OHIP: impact of age and gender

Objectives: Age- and gender-related differences in oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) have been shown in many studies and may be either due to real differences in oral health or age- and gender-related methodological challenges in the assessment of oral health problems. It was the aim of the study to investigate the impact of age and gender on OHRQoL assessment. Methods: OHRQoL was measured using the German version of the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-G) in a consecutive sample of 145 prosthodontic patients (mean age: 58.5±15 years; 53.8% female) seeking treatment or having an appointment for a check-up. OHIP impacts were recorded in the traditional ordinal response format “never”=0 to “very often”=4. Additionally, after completion of the OHIP, all participants were asked to count the frequency for each OHIP item. Answers ranged from “once in a month”=1 to “four times per day”=112. Impact of age category (defined by median of participants' age: 61 years) and gender on assessment of OHRQoL was conceptualized as the difference in the slope of a regression line using frequency of problems as independent and OHIP category as dependent variable and assuming a linear relationship between both variables. Differences were tested for statistical significance using t-tests and multiple linear regression analysis. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in slope coefficients with respect to age categories (p>0.05). Males were more sensitive to oral problems than females, indicated by a higher slope coefficient among males (0.11 vs. 0.06; p<0.05). However, when both variables were combined in a multiple linear regression analysis, neither age nor gender were statistically significant (both p>0.05). Conclusions: Assessment of OHRQoL using the OHIP is not affected by age or gender. Consequently, differences in OHIP scores seem to represent real differences in perceived oral health independent of subjects' age and gender.