Oral health-related quality of life of 12- and 15-year-old Thai children: findings from a national survey.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the prevalence and characteristics of oral impacts on daily life, and the relationship between certain dental conditions and impacts attributed to them, in a nationally representative population of Thai school children aged 12 and 15 years.


METHODS
A cross-sectional study on a representative sample of children in Sixth Thailand National Oral Health Survey. Sample included half the children aged 12- and 15-year-old selected in Bangkok and all participants in 8 of 16 provinces included in national survey. Children were individually interviewed using the Child-OIDP (12-year-old) and OIDP indices (15-year-old), and two questions for overall subjective assessments.


RESULTS
A total of 1066 12-year-olds and 815 15-year-olds were interviewed. Some 85.2% of 12-year-olds reported experiencing oral impacts during the past 3 months. Child-OIDP scores ranged from 0 to 68.0 (mean = 7.83, SD = 7.8). Eating was the most commonly affected performance (64.4%), followed by cleaning teeth (51.7%) and maintaining emotional state (49.1%). Among 15-year-old children, 83.3% had oral impacts during the past 6 months. OIDP scores ranged from 0 to 39.5 (mean = 5.47, SD = 6.0). The three most commonly affected performances were eating (64.0%), cleaning teeth (55.3%) and maintaining emotional state (53.1%). Toothache and oral ulcers were the two most important perceived causes in 12-year-olds. Impacts from toothache were the most prevalent (39.2%) and had a condition-specific (CS) Child-OIDP score of 7.0, while oral ulcers affected 24.7% of children; mean CS-score of 8.0. Among 15-year-olds, oral ulcers ranked first in terms of both prevalence (36.2%) and CS-score (6.0), followed by toothache (prevalence 33.9% and CS-score 5.0). For both age groups, problems with gums were of less concern.


CONCLUSIONS
Oral impacts were common but not severe in Thai children and adolescents. For both age groups, impacts were mostly on eating performance; toothache and oral ulcers were the two important perceived causes reflecting needs for oral health promotion and treatment of dental caries and oral ulcers.
Department of Community Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Sudaduang
S
Krisdapong
Aubrey
A
Sheiham
Georgios
G
Tsakos
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004435:Eating; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009909:Oral Health; D009910:Oral Hygiene; D019226:Oral Ulcer / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D011788:Quality of Life; D013785:Thailand; D014098:Toothache / Q000453:epidemiology