Quantifying health utilities of young adult orthodontic patients using the time trade-off method: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective: To study the feasibility of time trade-off (TTO) method in quantifying health utility ratings in different types of malocclusion. Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 70 orthodontic patients aged 18 years or above, reporting for treat-ment/consultation, were included and interviewed. Malocclu-sion-related health utilities were assessed through the TTO method, and oral health-related quality of life was measured with the help of Orthognathic Quality of Life Questionnaire (OQLQ). An-gle’s classification of malocclusion was recorded. Bivariate anal-yses and multivariate Poisson’s regression were done to find out an association between the oral health utility values, OQLQ and demographic and clinical characteristics. Results: Patients with skeletal Class III malocclusion had low-er health utility values than those with Class I and Class II mal-occlusions (p=0.013). Poisson’s regression showed that Angle’s Class II division 1 (0.90, CI 0.84 to 0.97), Class III (0.68, CI 0.59 to 0.95) and Skeletal malocclusion (0.79, CI 0.71 to 0.87) and OQLQ scores (1.0, CI 1 to 1.003) were found to be significant pre-dictors of TTO utility scores. Conclusions: TTO utilities were found to be valid and well correlated with clinical findings. Health utilities could serve as useful and reliable markers of health-related quality of life (HRQL) among individuals or communities and help cost-ef-fective preventive or intervention programs planning.