Williams, K.A.; Shamia, H.; DeBaz, C.; Palomo, L. Quality of Life and Poor Oral Health: A Comparison of Postmenopausal Women. Dent. J.2016, 4, 44.
Williams, K.A.; Shamia, H.; DeBaz, C.; Palomo, L. Quality of Life and Poor Oral Health: A Comparison of Postmenopausal Women. Dent. J. 2016, 4, 44.
Williams, K.A.; Shamia, H.; DeBaz, C.; Palomo, L. Quality of Life and Poor Oral Health: A Comparison of Postmenopausal Women. Dent. J.2016, 4, 44.
Williams, K.A.; Shamia, H.; DeBaz, C.; Palomo, L. Quality of Life and Poor Oral Health: A Comparison of Postmenopausal Women. Dent. J. 2016, 4, 44.
Abstract
Interrelationships between traditional dental variables are becoming more evident in far reaching aspects of life such as psychosocial interaction, self-esteem, overall health and even occupational performance. This study compares quality of life (QoL) in postmenopausal women (PMW) with poor oral health (POH) with QoL in PMW with good oral health.
200 randomly recruited PMW received a dental evaluation and completed Utian Quality of Life Survey. The participants were divided into POH and healthy groups based on dental exam. Mean scores were calculated for each QoL item, domain and the overall summary score. For each of the four parameters for periodontitis diagnosis, periodontitis patients’ QoL outcomes were compared to those of healthy patients using T-test with threshold of significance at p<0.05. QoL in all fields measured were significantly poorer in the POH compared to the healthy patients, occupational (19.95±5.35vs. 27.56±6.13), health (18.02±8.23 vs. 26.59 ±6.45), emotional (15.68±10.22vs. 21.15±9.15), sexual (6.2±5.98vs. 10.02±5.35), and total score (60.21±25.85 vs. 84.26±22.35). This study finds that PMW with POH, report significantly poorer quality of life. Clinicians caring for PMW should be aware of that oral health impacts QoL and make appropriate referral decisions for patients’ dental care.
Keywords: Quality of Life, Oral Health, Post-menopause,
Women
Keywords
oral health; quality of life; postmenopausal women
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Dentistry and Oral Surgery
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
