Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of a domiciliary denture service on the oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) of older patients requiring complete dentures.
Design: Single blind randomised controlled trial in a community setting.
Participants: 133 edentate adults aged 65 years and over who had been referred to a Community Dental Service for domiciliary care.
Intervention: Participants were assigned randomly into either study or control groups. Treatment to provide the study group with a full denture commenced immediately. Treatment for the control group was deferred but participants received 3 home visits from the dental team.
Method: The two groups were stratified (with block randomisation) for whether or not they required dentures made by a copy technique. Follow up data were collected 3 months after dentures had been fitted in the study group.
Outcome measures: Number of impacts and total scores using Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP)
Results: The study and control groups (n = 65 and 68 respectively) had similar OHRQoL at baseline. 2 and 5 participants were lost to the study and control groups respectively. In ANCOVA using intention to treat analysis, follow up data were predicted by their baseline values. Number of impacts at follow up and Total OHIP score were predicted by group allocation (
b = 0.44, se = 1.13,
P< 0.001 and
b= 0.44, se = 3.60,
P< 0.001 respectively).
Conclusion: A domiciliary denture service can improve oral health related quality of life of housebound edentulous elders.
This study is supported by The Community Fund, Grant Number: RB 217655