Influence of professionally assessed normative orthodontic treatment need on adult OHRQoL

Abstract

Introduction: There is an increasing amount of research regarding the impact of malocclusions on OHRQoL. Reviews on this topic has mostly focused on children and adolescents, and therefore the aim of this thesis is to investigate the impact of professionally assessed normative orthodontic treatment need on adult OHRQOL. Materials and methods: Four electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane library and Google Scholar) were searched using a search syntax including orthodontic treatment need, malocclusion, OHRQoL. The following inclusion criteria were used: Adult study population, healthy study participants, no previous or ongoing orthodontic treatment, a focus on malocclusion and quality of life, malocclusions assessed by professionals, OHRQoL estimated using validated questionnaires, and full-text articles written in English or in the Scandinavian languages. Methodical quality was assessed according to the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Results: A total of 1152 titles and abstracts were identified after duplicates were removed and 11 studies were included for the final analysis. The studies represented a large variation in sample size, methodology and geographical spread and were assessed as being of low to moderate methodological quality. All 11 studies presented significant associations between malocclusion (indices or specific malocclusions) and OHRQoL (domains or total scores). Regression analyses disclosed most of the associations as weak to moderate. Conclusion: Adults with considerable malocclusions have significantly poorer OHRQoL than people with occlusions near or within norms. Future studies would benefit from longitudinal studies with large representative samples.