Oral Health Impact Profile of Obese and Bariatric Patients

Objective: the aim of this study was to evaluate the oral health impact profile (OHIP-14) of obese patients and patients submitted to bariatric surgery. Methods: One hundred and twenty-five patients (mean age 38±10 years) were examined in a Public Hospital in São Luis-MA, Brazil. The sample was consisted of 42 volunteers that had been submitted to bariatric surgery at least six months previously, 41 obese patients on the waiting list for this surgery and 42 patients waiting for ambulatory medical care in other sectors (Control). The volunteers were submitted to anamnesis and answered the OHIP-14 questionnaire to assess the perceived impact of oral health on life in seven domains: functional limitation, physical pain, psychological discomfort, physical disability, psychological disability, social disability and Handicap. A final score was obtained for each volunteer and data from obese and bariatric patients were compared with control group by Mann-Whitney test (α=0.05). Results: The frequency of volunteers that experienced at least one oral health impact was 85.7% and 88.1% in bariatric and obese patients groups respectively, while only 50% of volunteers in control group reported some positive answers. It was found a slight predominance of impacts on physical pain domain for all groups. For OHIP-14 scores, it was observed that the values of bariatric and obese patients were statistically higher than the control volunteers (p=0.000). Conclusion: The oral health had a higher impact for obese and bariatric patients’ life.