Oral health related quality of life among dental students in a private dental institution in India

BACKGROUND: The compartmentalization involved in viewing the mouth separately from the rest of the body must cease. This is because oral health affects general health by causing considerable pain and suffering; and, by changing what people eat and their speech, can bring about a change in their quality of life and well-being. There are several instruments for measuring oral health related quality of life, and, OIDP (Oral Impact on Daily Performance) is one among them. AIM: The aim of this study is to assess the OIDP among dental students and to know whether students in different stages of the dental course had any difference in impact on their daily performance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 372 students of Bachelor of Dental Sciences’ (BDS) course at Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Manipal, Karnataka, India, from the first to final year, and interns answered a structured questionnaire recording their demographic characteristics, behavioral characteristics and eight items of OIDP. RESULTS: The mean OIDP Additive scores (ADD) and OIDP Simple count scores (SC) scores were 7.02 (sd = 3.3, range 8 - 40) and 2.16 (sd = 1.55, range 0 - 8), repectively. A total of 36.6%, 12.9% and 12.9% of the dental students confirmed difficulties with eating, enjoying contact with other people and carrying out major college work, respectively. Logistic regression analysis revealed that compared with the first BDS dental students, the Odds ratio (OR) for the second, third, fourth year and intern dental students for being without oral impacts, despite reporting poor oral health, were 0.21 (95% CI: 0.24 – 1.9), 0.61 (95% CI: 0.06 – 6.2), 0.70 (95% CI: 0.61 – 8.2) and 0.54 (95% CI: 0.3 – 9.3), respectively. CONCLUSION: The study reported the OIPD among dental students and provided evidence of importance of social and behavioral characteristics in shaping the response by dental students.