Oral health-related quality of life and its association with oral health literacy and dental caries experience among a group of pregnant women.

Background: Oral health plays an important role in the general health of pregnant women and their newborns. Our aim was to assess oral health-related quality of life and its association with oral health literacy and dental caries among a group of Iranian pregnant women.

Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 pregnant women attending a governmental hospital in Isfahan, Iran, applying a convenient sampling method. Self-administrated questionnaires requested information about demographics, oral health-related quality of life utilizing Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14), and oral health literacy. A senior dental student conducted a clinical examination to record dental caries with Decayed, Missing, and Filled Teeth (DMFT) index. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Mann-Whitney U-test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Spearman correlation coefficient, and logistic regression model served for analysis (P < 0.05).

Results: The prevalence of oral health impacts on quality of life was 36%. In terms of the severity, the mean score of OHIP-14 was 13.2 ± 9.0 (range: 0-38). The mean score of oral health literacy was 9.7 ± 3.2 (range: 1-16). The mean DMFT was 9.8 ± 5.2. No significant relationship existed between oral health-related quality of life and oral health literacy (P = 0.347). A higher score of OHIP-14 was revealed among participants with higher DMFT index (P = 0.003, r = 0.21). In multivariate analysis, DMFT was independently associated with the likelihood of reporting one or more oral health impacts on quality of life (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: Higher caries experience was associated with poorer oral health-related quality of life among pregnant women. Thus, it is recommended to increase quality of life through preventive measures to control the dental caries experience.