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Updated: Jul 8, 2026

Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Changes in oral health-related quality of life during fixed orthodontic appliance therapy
Man Zhang1, Colman McGrath, Urban Hägg
1Department of Orthodontics and Key Lab for Oral Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
Introduction:
Our objective was to determine changes in oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) during fixed orthodontic appliance therapy.
Methods:
This prospective cohort study included a consecutive sample of 217 children receiving fixed orthodontic appliance therapy. Each subject completed the 37-item child perception questionnaire (CPQ) at 5 times: before treatment (T0), and after the placement of the fixed appliance at 1 week (T1), 1 month (T2), 3 months (T3), and 6 months (T4).
Results:
The response rate was 91% (198 of 217). There were significant changes in overall CPQ scores (P <.001), oral symptom scores (P <.001), functional limitation scores (P <.001), and emotional well-being scores (P <.001) over the study period (6 months). There were significant differences in certain CPQ domain scores at T1, T2, T3, and T4 compared with T0 (P <.05) and consistently with respect to oral symptoms. Significant changes in certain CPQ domain scores also occurred between T1 and T2 (P <.05) and between T2 and T3 (P <.05). However, there were no significant changes in social well-being scores (P >.05).
Conclusions:
Changes in OHRQoL occur after fixed orthodontic appliance therapy. Compared with pretreatment, a patient's OHRQoL is frequently worse during treatment (oral symptoms, functional limitations), although it is better in some aspects (emotional well-being). The period of greatest change in OHRQoL occurs during the first month of treatment.
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