Leao, Anna Thereza Thome; (1993) The development of measures of dental impacts on daily living. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

There is an increasing awareness of the need for measures of the social and psychological consequences of oral disorders. There are data on the social and psychological impacts of oral disease, but they do not measure the seriousness of the impacts. Therefore further research is needed on socio-dental indicators to develop simple, comprehensive, valid and reliable measures of dental functioning that can be linked to clinical status measures. The main objective of this research is to develop a socio-dental method which includes measures of how oral health status affects the quality of daily living and links that to clinical status. The measure will include social and psychological dimensions as well as clinical measures. The hypothesis is that the degree of the impact of the mouth in terms of self-image, performance, comfort and symptoms affects people socially and psychologically. Based on categories developed by Cushing (1986), the Social Impact of Dental Disease, the questionnaire being proposed includes the following dimensions: appearance, pain, comfort, eating restriction and general performance. The dimensions have been validated and reliability has been tested. Furthermore, utility weighting for questions is discussed. A final score for each dimension and for all dimensions together was calculated by summing question scores. From this three different groups were formed: the satisfied, the relatively satisfied and the dissatisfied. Their clinical status was analyzed. The questionnaire has been tested in Brazil, on a sample of 662 people, aged 35 to 44 years, of two social classes and both genders. The clinical oral measure used is the DMFT, and three groups have been selected : low, median and high DMFT. This study presents a measure of how oral health is perceived and how it affects people's life, dealing equally with negative and positive contributions to quality of life. Combined with clinical status measures it should improve estimates of need.

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