Oral Health Related Quality of Life of Patients Suffering from Acute Dental Pain of Endodontic Origin

Abstract Millions of root canal treatment is being done every year to relieve the patient of endodontic pain, but a vast majority of them are not being assessed for oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) after the procedure.The primary objective of this study is to assess Oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) of patients suffering from acute dental pain of endodontic origin before and after the institution of root canal treatment. This cross sectional, questionnaire based study was conducted among 86 out patients reporting to the Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics. The validity of the 5 point Likert scale questionnaire was confirmed using a content validity index by distributing the questionnaire amongst six experts. The questionnaire was tendered to patients before and 1 week after single visit root canal treatment. The questionnaire was categorised into 3 constructs representing sleep, physical, social and psychological dimension. Pre-treatment and post-treatment OHRQoL scores were analysed statistically using Wilcoxon rank test. There was a statistically significant median decrease in OHRQoL post-operative scores for all the three constructs. This study suggests that root canal treatment significantly improves OHRQoL of patients suffering from acute pain of endodontic origin.