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Updated: May 16, 2026

Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Malocclusion impacts adolescents' oral health-related quality of life
Annarosa Scapini1, Carlos Alberto Feldens, Thiago Machado Ardenghi
1Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Universidade Luterana do Brasil, Canoas-RS, Brazil.
Objective:
To test the hypothesis that malocclusion does not have an independent and negative effect on quality of life of adolescents.
Materials And Methods:
The cross-sectional design study comprised a sample of 519 children, aged 11 to 14 years, attending public schools in Osorio, a city in southern Brazil. One calibrated examiner carried out clinical examinations and recorded dental caries (decayed/missing/filled teeth), malocclusion (Dental Aesthetic Index), and dental trauma. Participants completed the Brazilian version of the Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ11-14), Impact Short Form, and their parents or guardians answered questions about socioeconomic status. Simple and multivariate linear regressions were performed to assess covariates for the overall CPQ11-14 scores.
Results:
Greater impacts on oral health-related quality of life were observed for girls (P = .007), children with a lower household income (P = .016), those living in nonnuclear families (P < .001), and those with more decayed/missing/filled teeth (P = .001). Malocclusion was also associated with oral health-related quality of life: the severity of malocclusion was significantly related to higher scores of CPQ11-14 even after scores were adjusted for control variables. CPQ11-14 increased by approximately 1 point for each increase in the severity of malocclusion.
Conclusions:
Malocclusion has a negative effect on adolescents' quality of life, independent of dental caries or traumatic dental injuries. Socioeconomic inequalities and clinical conditions are important features in adolescents' quality of life.
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