Assessment of Oral Health-Related Quality of Life among Children Who Received Dental Treatment by Dental Nurse Students at Sirindhorn College of Public Health Chonburi, Thailand

Abstract

Background: Previously, the quality of dental care at Sirindhorn College of Public Health Chonburi (SCPHC) dental clinic has been assessed purely in clinical terms such as dental cavity, occlusion, margin, and overhang of the dental restoration. However, assessing only technical aspects would not capture all components of quality. The effectiveness and acceptability components are not completely measured when only technical terms are assessed because we do not know to what extent the perspectives of patients on their oral health related quality of life (OHQoL) has changed as a result of dental treatment.  Thus, there is a need to measure people’s perceptions of dental treatment they received, in line with the broader concepts of health. The objective of this research was to compare the effect of treatment provided by dental nurse students on OHQoL at baseline with OHQoL at three-month follow up.

Methods: Three hundred and fifty children from eight schools in Chonburi province participated in the study. Consecutive sampling was used. Dental treatments were delivered by second year dental nurse students free of charge as part of their training at SCPHC dental clinic to complete the degree of Diploma of Public Health (Dental Public Health) from June to September 2012. Child perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ_11-14) was used to measure OHQoL. Inferential statistics (Paired t-test) at a significance level of 0.05 was used to compare children’s OHQoL at baseline and three months after dental treatment.

Results: At three-month follow up, participants had significantly improved oral symptoms (p=0.004), functional limitations (p=0.044) and emotional well-being (p=0.011) but social well-being did not show any significant improvement (p=0.278). The total score of CPQ_11-14 showed that OHQoL three months after dental treatment did not improve significantly (p=0.080) but it did improve marginally significantly.

Conclusions: There were improvements in three domains: oral symptoms, functional limitations and emotional well-being at follow up. Dental treatments were not related to changes in OHQoL.  Individual and environmental factors have important roles in OHQoL and further studies on these factors are needed.