Oral Health Impact Profile-14 as an assessment tool for quality of life in Secondary Burning Mouth Syndrome patients

Abstract

AbstractObjective: To investigate the impact of burning mouth syndrome on the quality of life by means of Oral Health Impact Profile 14 (OHIP-14) and to compare the OHIP-14 scores in different underlying conditions.Methods: The study was executed at the Department of Oral Diagnosis, Ziauddin College of Dentistry, Ziauddin University from June 2018 until June 2019. Fifty-four individuals suffering from BMS were included in this study out of which 33 were females and 21 were males aged between 18 and 60 years. The individuals were required to fill out a form which included details of their demographics, any known systemic conditions that they were suffering from and details of any medications being taken. The patients were then distributed into different groups according to any comorbid condition or any medications they were taking. The conditions according to which the patients were grouped were diabetes, postmenopause, gastroesophageal reflux disease, Sjogren's syndrome, intake of anti-hypertensives or psychological factors. In addition, patients were interviewed using the Oral Health Impact Profile 14(OHIP-14). For the statistical analysis, frequencies and percentages were used for categorical data and means and standard deviations were employed for the numerical data. Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to see if associated conditions had an effect on the severity of BMS measured in terms of Oral Health Impact Profile 14.Results: The scores for the domains of physical pain and physical disability were highest whereas the lowest scores were observed in the categories of psychological discomfort and psychological disability. The data was not homogenous; therefore, the non-parametric test Kruskal-Wallis test was carried out tofind if there was any significant difference in the OHIP scores in the different groups namely diabetes, post-menopause, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, Sjogren's syndrome, intake of anti-hypertensives or psychological factors. A p-value of 0.169 was calculated indicating that there were no significant differencesobserved in the OHIP-14 scores among the different groups.Conclusion: Burning mouth syndrome has a negative impact on the quality of life according to the OHIP-14 scores. However, associated comorbid or other underlying conditions namely diabetes, post-menopause, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, Sjogren's syndrome, intake of anti-hypertensives or psychological factors did not alter the OHIP-14 results significantly.