Oral health-related quality of life and its association with oral health literacy and dental caries experience among a group of pregnant women: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Background: Oral health plays an important role in general health of the pregnant women and their newborns. The aim of this study was to assess oral health-related quality of life and its association with oral health literacy and dental caries experience among a group of Iranian pregnant women.Methods: Applying a convenient sampling method, a cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 pregnant women attending a governmental hospital in Isfahan, Iran, in 2019. Self-administrated questionnaires requested information about women’s demographics, their oral health-related quality of life utilizing Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14), and their oral health literacy utilizing Oral Health Literacy-Adult Questionnaire. A senior dental student conducted clinical examination under the artificial light of a headlamp based on the WHO (World Health Organization) criteria to record dental caries experience with Decayed, Missing and Filled Teeth (DMFT) index. Mann-whitney U test, Kruskal–Wallis test, spearman correlation coefficient, and a linear regression model served for statistical analysis (p<0.05). Results: The mean age of the pregnant women was 28.8 ± 5.5. About half of the women (49.5%) had a high school diploma, and 84% were homemaker. The mean score of OHIP-14 was 13.2 ± 9.0 (range 0-38). The mean score of oral health literacy was 9.7 ± 3.2 (range 1-16). The mean DMFT was 9.8 ± 5.2. In multivariate analysis, higher score of OHIP-14 was associated with higher caries experience (p<0.05).Conclusions: Higher caries experience was associated with more effects of oral problems on pregnant women’s quality of life. Thus, it is recommended to increase their oral health-related quality of life via preventive measures to control the dental caries experience.