Tooth loss and quality of life in elderly people

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of tooth loss in the Quality of Life of aged individuals. Methods: Twenty-eight elderly independent individuals from the "Vida Centro Human¨ªstico" conviviality group from Porto Alegre, Brazil were evaluated. Sampling was by convenience and the Committee of Ethics in Research of the Institution approved the research protocol. Individuals were evaluated regarding to the number of teeth present and, after, divided into two groups as follows: group 1, individuals with 0 to 7 teeth, and group 2 = those with 8 or more teeth. WHOQoL brief version Inventory was used to assess quality of life. Differences between groups was verified with Mann-Whitney test, and internal consistency with Cronbach's ¦Á. Value set to reject null hypothesis was p<0.05. Mean age in years was 70 (± 8.2), 82.1% were female, and mean income was 349.29 reais (±190.80). The mean number of teeth was 2.2 in the group 1 and 10.7 in the group 2. Results: There was a significant difference between the groups regarding to the domain environment of the WHOQoL (p=0.05). There was a good internal consistency of the inventory, with a Cronbach's ¦Á = 0.83. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that, for the elderly evaluated in this study, the number of natural teeth present was important to determine differences in quality of life (environment domain). In this study, individuals with 8 or more teeth rated their quality of life better than those with lesser teeth.