Oral Health-Related Quality of Life Outcomes for Individuals with Disabilities: A Review

Abstract

Individuals with disabilities experience poor oral health status and poor access to health care services due to many barriers. This can negatively affect their well-being and Quality of Life (QoL). The important benchmark to determine the impact of oral health conditions were clinical examinations using established indices. Relying only on clinical assessments and objective measures lead to the ignorance of patients’ perspectives and subjective aspects of oral health assessments that consequently gave an incomplete picture of patients’ experiences. There are various Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) tools which can determine or measure patient-reported outcomes to assess the impacts of oral diseases and/or conditions among the general population. This article aims at reviewing the commonly-reported OHRQoL measures among adults and children of the general population. The OHRQoL studies conducted among individuals with disabilities, and findings of existing studies are also covered in this paper.

Keywords

• barriers
• clinical assessments
• oral health status
• objective measures