Use of the Spanish version of Oral Health Impact Profile-14 to evaluate the impact of dental treatment on oral health-related quality of life among Costa Rican adults

Objectives: The Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) is an observational instrument that measures quality of life of oral health. Although this instrument is commonly being applied in population studies, no studies have been used in Central America to identify needs in clinical practice, selecting therapies and monitoring the progress of patients. Considering the above, we evaluate the association between dental satisfaction and the oral health related quality of life in a group of Costa Rican university patients when controlling for the sociodemograpic factor of gender using OHIP.
Methods: The Spanish version of the OHIP-EE-14 was administered on two different occasions to 148 patients at ULACIT, San José, Costa Rica. A Two-sample T-Test with a significance level set at 0.05 was used to determine if oral health quality of life differed for men and women during course of treatment.
Results: Data was collected initially for 148 patients, of which 138 returned. There was a decrease in total scores and domains of OHIP-14 after intervention. When divided into gender, women reported higher impairment than men in total scores and domains of OHIP-14 at both baseline and after intervention. These differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05) at baseline between genders at OHIP sum scores, and domains of physical pain, psychological discomfort, psychological disability and social disability. After intervention, impairment was reported higher in women than men, with differences statistically significant (P < 0.05) at OHIP sum scores, and domains of functional limitation, psychological discomfort, psychological disability and social disability.
Conclusions: These results indicate that quality of life is not influenced by a single factor, but rather a very complex area that may fluctuate at different stages of life, between genders and cultures. The findings, the first in the region, suggest that dental treatment might impact psychological and social benefits differently among genders.