Impact of dental caries and nutritional status on oral health related quality of life in young Indian adolescents

BACKGROUND: A combination of poor oral health status and malnourishment ultimately affect the quality of life of the person. Hence, these tools may help in identifying individuals at risk of poor quality of life and malnutrition caused by oral problems especially in adolescents. OBJECTIVE: To test the association between dental caries, nutritional status and Oral Health Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) in 12–15 year-old school going adolescents. STUDY DESIGN: A cross sectional study was conducted on 12-15-year-old school going adolescents. A total of 1214 adolescents participated in the study. Data on quality of life was collected using OHIP-14 and clinical examination was done to assess the DMFT status and Body Mass Index (BMI) as measure of nutritional status of the subjects. RESULTS: DMFT was found to be positively correlated with total OHIP score, however BMI was negatively correlated with OHIP. Controlling for BMI, partial correlation analysis revealed that there is a weak association between OHIP and DMFT scores which was found to be statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Both caries experience and nutrition status had significant impact on Quality of Life. All the three parameters were found to be correlated to each other.