Prosthodontics and Oral Health-Related Quality of Life

To lose teeth and be obliged to use removable prostheses might impact dramatically on your everyday activities. Prosthodontics is aiming to enable the patients to eat whatever they like, but also to make them feel socially comfortable with artificial teeth. However, there is an individual diversity which makes it impossible to assess the impact of tooth loss without concern for individual attributes. The aim of this thesis was to study the impact of oral prostheses on oral health- related quality of life (OHRQOL). Additional aims were to study social inequalities in oral health, attitudes towards costs for dental care and care utilization. The number of remaining teeth was more important than the type of denture when explaining OHRQOL. The type of replacement, in terms of fixed or removable denture, was less important for those with few or no remaining teeth, than for all others. Interactions were observed between number of remaining teeth and type of denture when explaining OHRQOL. As a whole the thesis shows that social and dental conditions and cost for dental care play a great role for dental care utilization as well as for OHRQOL.