Oral heath related quality of life: dental students' knowledge

Objectives: Oral health-related quality of life (OHRQL) is an important patient-centered endpoint. As a part of oral health program development a baseline survey of Chilean and German dental students was performed in order to explore educational experiences and knowledge concerning OHRQL

Methods: A questionnaire was distributed among 74 Chilean and 50 German dental students in 4th and 5th grade with questions related to OHRQL knowledge. The instrument included questions related OHRQL as a parameter to measure need and results of treatment of a patient . The data was analyzed with chi-square test and was considered significant for p<0.05

Results: Responses revealed that 62,2% of Chilean dental students (CDS) and 24 % of German dental students (GDS) had received information about OHRQL during the career, focused on treatment of patients (p<0.05)

The use of OHRQL was by 47,3% of CDS and 14% of GDS considered that always can be a parameter to evaluate the result of patient treatment.

37,8% of GDS and 6% of CDS consider that always OHRQL can be a parameter to measure the need of treatment

There was 2,8% of CDS and 48% of GDS that had information of what means the abbreviation OHRQL. It was found no difference between both groups in the believe that dental treatment can improve the quality of life.

Conclusions: This study found that CDS dental students believe that are well-informed about quality of life in relation to oral health, focused on the treatment of the patients. However, OHRQL knowledge is rare and much effort seems necessary to assure that dental students learned this topics as basis for any oral health program development. Although the GDS seems to be less informed about of quality of life in relation to oral health, the level of OHRQL knowledge is higher.