Evaluation of relationship between oral health-related quality of life and occlusion traits among female adolescents

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to determine the impact of malocclusions on oral health-related quality of life (OHRQOL) among female adolescents. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is an observational cross-sectional descriptive study. A total of 129 female students with age ranges between 14 and 17 years old were randomly selected from Mashhad (Iran) high schools and were asked to fill out an OHRQOL questionnaire included in four parts: Oral symptoms, functional limitations, emotional well-being and social well-being. Each participant was clinically examined to assess her malocclusion according to the index of complexity, outcome and need (ICON) and finally the data were entered to SPSS 11.5 and the relation between these two variables was assessed with Pearson correlation test. P < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: There was statistically significant correlation between ICON scores and quality of life (P = 0.0176). Being separately assessed, among four parts of the questionnaire, only emotional well-being was significantly correlated with the ICON score (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Malocclusions play a vital role in OHRQOL. However, in female adolescents among four parts of OHRQOL, emotional well-being had significant relationship with malocclusions.