Periodontal status, diabetes mellitus and oral health-related quality of life

Abstract

Objective: To study the impact of periodontal status and diabetes mellitus (DM) on oral health-related quality of life (OHQoL). Methods: This preliminary study recruited 46 subjects with DM and 46 age- and sex- matched subjects without DM from Tung Wah Eastern Hospital. Subjects responded to a questionnaire on background information and self-reported symptoms, completed the Chinese short-form version of the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP14S), and underwent a clinical examination. Continuous data were compared using Mann-Whitney U tests and categorical data using Chi-square tests.

Results: The mean age of DM subjects was 55.7 years, and for non-DM subjects was 55.8 years. The mean glycated haemoglobin was 7.7±1.4% and fasting plasma glucose was 7.95±2.13mmol/l in DM subjects. For the DM/non-DM subjects, the percentage of sites with plaque was 81%/83%, percent of sites with bleeding on probing was 63%/60%, mean probing pocket depth was 2.7mm/2.6mm, mean clinical attachment loss (CAL) was 3.7mm/3.4mm, and mean DMFT was 8/7, none of these differences being significant. However, DM subjects presented with significantly more missing teeth (5.0 vs 2.9). No significant difference in the OHIP14S total score was detected between DM and non-DM subjects. Self-reported symptoms were highly associated with OHIP-14S score in both DM and non-DM subjects. No significant difference on OHIP-14S score was found between those with CAL ≤3mm and >3mm in both DM and non-DM groups, except for greater psychological disability subscale score in DM subjects having CAL ˃ 3mm (p=0.04).

Conclusions: Significant associations between OHQoL and self-reported oral symptoms were found for both DM and non-DM subjects. DM subjects had more missing teeth, and those DM subjects with greater CAL showed inferior OHQoL in the psychological disability subscale, highlighting the importance of promotion and maintenance of oral health in DM patients.