Oral health-related quality of life among male subjects with oral submucous fibrosis in a tertiary care hospital.

Background: Oral submucous fibrosis is very common in Asia. It has many deleterious effects on individual's oral functions. Thus, there is a need to assess the effect of oral submucous fibrosis on quality of life.

Objective: To assess the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in male subjects with oral submucous fibrosis.

Methods: Two hundred and thirty male subjects in the age range of 20-40 years were recruited in the cross-sectional, two-group comparative study. Of 230 male subjects, 115 were oral submucous fibrosis subjects who were included in the study group and 115 healthy subjects formed the control group. English version of the oral health impact profile-14 (OHIP-14) was used to assess the OHRQoL. Wilcoxon signed-rank, Kruskal-Wallis, and Bonferroni tests were applied, and the P = 0.05 was considered as level of significance.

Results: The mean and median OHIP-14 scores were 19.10 ± 0.66 and 18.00 in the study group and 3.98 ± 3.80 and 3.00 in the control group subjects, respectively (P < 0.001). Mean score of all the seven domains of OHIP-14 was significantly more in oral submucous fibrosis subjects (P < 0.001). All the oral submucous fibrosis subjects had one or more negative effects on OHRQoL compared to 64.34% of healthy subjects. Stage-4 of the oral submucous fibrosis had maximum effect on quality of life compared to other stages (P < 0.001).

Conclusions: The quality of life among males is severely affected by oral submucous fibrosis, and Stage-4 of oral submucous fibrosis has maximum effect on the quality of life.