Objectives: This study aimed at evaluating oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) among adults with cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) and compared it with adults with no orofacial cleft. The study also intended to find out the impact of cleft severity, gender, and age on the perceived OHRQoL.
Materials and methods: The study was composed of a sample of 70 adult participants who received and completed dental treatments: 35 participants with CL/P (CL/P group) and 35 participants with no orofacial cleft (control group) agreed to participate. Each participant completed the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-49) with no missing data. The OHIP-49 data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test, and a P-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Results: Adults with CL/P reported higher scores in all the seven subscales of the OHIP-49. These results were statistically significant in physical disability (mean scores of 1.22, p = 0.017) and social disability (mean scores of 0.93, p = 0.046). Females with CL/P recorded better OHRQoL in the handicap domain (p = 0.026). Participants with cleft lip only recorded better OHRQoL compared with those with cleft lip and palate, and that was statistically significant at both the functional limitation (p = 0.003) and the physical pain (p = 0.046). There was a significant positive correlation between increasing age and functional limitation (p = 0.025).
Conclusion: CL/P negatively affected OHRQoL for adults with CL/P mainly on physical and social disabilities of OHIP-49 when compared with a general non-cleft sample.
Keywords: Adults; dental treatment; oral health; orofacial cleft; quality of life.
Copyright: © 2021 Journal of International Society of Preventive and Community Dentistry.