Association Between Oral Health-Related and Health-Related Quality of Life

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the correlation between the four dimensions of Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) constructs in a dental patient population. METHODS: A cross-sectional study carried out at HealthPartners, Minnesota, USA. This study is a secondary data analysis of available adult dental patients’ data. The instruments used to assess the OHRQoL and HRQoL constructs were the Oral Health Impact Profile–version with 49 items (OHIP-49) and Patient-Reported Outcome Measures Information System (PROMIS) measures v.1.1 Global Health instruments Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), respectively. We used Structural Equation Modeling to determine the correlation between OHRQoL and HRQoL. RESULTS: Two thousand and seventy-six dental patients participated in the study. OHRQoL and HRQoL scores correlated with 0.56 (95%CI:0.52–0.60). The OHRQoL and Physical Health dimension of HRQoL correlated with 0.55 (95%CI:0.51–0.59). The OHRQoL and Mental Health dimension of HRQoL correlated with 0.51 (95%CI:0.47–0.55). When adjusted for age, gender, and depression, the correlation coefficients changed only slightly and resulted in 0.52 between OHRQoL and HRQoL Physical Health, and 0.47 between OHRQoL and HRQoL Mental Health. Model fit statistics for all analyses were adequate and indicated a good fit. CONCLUSIONS: OHRQoL and HRQoL overlap greatly. For dental practitioners, the OHRQoL score is informative for their patients’ general health status and vice versa. Study results indicate that effective therapeutic interventions by dentists improve patients’ OHRQoL as well as HRQoL.