Oral Health-Related Quality of Life and Its Association with Employment

Objectives: to examine the association between Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) and unfavorable work outcomes, including employment status and productivity. Methods: this investigation was a secondary analysis of data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), Cycle 3.1. The study population was restricted to participants who were 20 to 59 years of age. Items measuring the OHRQoL were derived from the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP). Items measuring employment status and work productivity (e.g. bed days, disability days, hours worked per week) were analyzed for those with and without ‘dental pain'. Dental pain was defined as having toothache in the past month and 1 or more teeth extracted in the past 12 months. Logistic regression was used to obtain confounder-adjusted odds ratios for employment outcomes. Results: dental pain was associated with a two-fold increase in unemployment in the past year and remained highly statistically significant when sex, age, number of children £ 5 years, marital status, education, country of birth, ethnicity and physical limitations where controlled for in the model [OR = 1.65, 95% CI = 1.20, 2.16]. Similar results were obtained for the other OHRQoL indicators, particularly those in the social disability domain. Conclusions: the findings indicate that those classified as having dental pain and those who had a negative impact on their OHRQoL were more likely to experience unfavorable employment outcomes.