Dental Patients' Functional, Pain-Related, Aesthetic, And Psychosocial Impact Of Oral Conditions On Quality Of Life-Project Overview, Data Collection, Quality Assessment, And Publication Bias

Background Knowledge about the magnitude of Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) impairment across dental patient populations is essential for clinical practice, public health and research. Within the project Mapping Oral Disease Impact with a Common Metric, this systematic review aimed to describe functional, pain-related, aesthetic and broader psychosocial impact of oral conditions with a single metric using OHRQoL dimensionsOral Function, Oro facial Pain, Oro facial AppearanceandPsychosocial Impact. Methods A search using PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane, CINAHL and PsycINFO was performed on 8 June 2017, and updated on 14 January 2019. Only publications in the English language were considered. To characterise the extent of available standardised and clinically relevant OHRQoL information, we determined the number of publications, dental patient populations, which are clinically similar, and patient samples within each population with four-dimensional OHRQoL information using the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) questionnaire. A quality assessment and a publication bias assessment were performed. Results We identified 171 publications that characterised 199 dental populations and 329 patient samples with four-dimensional OHRQoL information. The vast majority of populations were only characterised by one patient sample. Study quality was not related to OHRQoL magnitude, and substantial publication bias could be excluded. Conclusions Standardised and clinically relevant information using the four OHRQoL dimensionsOral Function,Oro facial Pain,Oro facial AppearanceandPsychosocial Impactwas available for a significant number of dental patient populations. Findings can provide a framework to interpret OHRQoL impairment of individual patients, or groups of patients, for clinical practice, public health and research.