Impact of Awareness Obtained from Studying Dentistry on Oral Health-Related Quality of Life at Shahid Beheshti University
Abstract
Background: Today, the impact of oral health on indicators of quality of life is of great importance. As few studies have evaluated dental students who are future dentists of a society, this study was performed to assess the impact of awareness on oral health-related quality of life on first, third- and sixth-year Shahid Beheshti dental students in 2017-2018.
Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional and analytical study was conducted on 220 Shahid Beheshti dental students. The required data was collected by using a sociodemographic questionnaire (including gender, academic year indicating level of awareness, and GPA) and Persian version of oral health-related quality of life questionnaire, OHIP-14. The questionnaires’ scores were compared by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) or Welch’s t-test.
Results: The average total score of OHIP-14 questionnaire in dental students was 8.26 (SD=7.41). A significant relationship between the academic year and oral health-related quality of life was not noticed except in “Psychological Discomfort” domain where oral health-related quality of life deteriorated with an increase in the academic year (p=0.0001).
Conclusion: Oral health-related quality of life in dental students did not change significantly with an increase in the academic year except in “Psychological Discomfort” domain.