Oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) in patients wearing fixed partial dentures.

The objective of this longitudinal study was to find out patients self-perception about their oral health condition before treatment, one week and one year after the prosthodontics treatment with fixed partial dentures (FPD) as well as to compare the outcomes with healthy patients, by identifying the changes in relevant aspects of quality of life. A total of 70 subjects-35 with necessity of fixed partial dentures (FPD) and 35 healthy individuals without any need for prosthetic treatment as a control group (CG) participated on a voluntarily base by responding the OHIP-MAC49 questionnaire for determining the oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL). The FPD group responded in three time intervals--before the FPD intervention, one week after and finally, one year after it. In order to examine the extent in the improvement of the self-rated quality of life, these three measures taken over different periods of time were compared. This set of three assessments from the FPD group was also compared with the average scores of the CG. The results have shown very fast improvement in almost all domains of OHRQoL defined by the instrument after applying FPD. The overall mean of experienced or perceived difficulties after the FPD intervention dropped from X=57.1 (SD=22.4) to X=40.3 (SD=17.2) only one week after the treatment, whereas one year later it was reduced to X=6.5 (SD=4.4). Exceptions of the quick recovery were only two domains, mainly connected with the difficulties caused by dental pain. One year after the treatment, the scores of each of the domains of OHRQoL of the FPD patients were the same with those of the healthy individuals. The results indicated very satisfactory impact of this kind of dental appliance on oral health related to quality of life of FPD wearers.