Impact of caries prevalence on oral health-related quality of life among police personnel in Virajpet, South India.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to assess the impact of caries prevalence on oral health-related quality of life among police personnel in Virajpet, South India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Police personnel were randomly selected from the 296 police staff working in Virajpet, India. They were invited for a dental examination and a questionnaire survey. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect their demographic information, and to determine the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL). Caries experiences of the participants were recorded as per the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria (1997). The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare within-group differences of the selected sociodemographic factors and the Chi-square analysis was used to explore the association between the variables. RESULTS: All the 172 invited participants joined this study. Their mean age was 38.02 ± 9.08 years. There was no significant difference in oral health-related quality of life scores according to gender and age. The prevalence of dental caries was found to be 78% in the current study. Data analysis showed that there was no statistically significant association between the oral health-related quality of life scores and caries prevalence. CONCLUSION: The present study showed that there was no association between the oral health-related quality of life and caries prevalence among the police personnel in Virajpet.