Eficiência mastigatória e impacto da saúde oral na qualidade de vida em usuários de prótese total convencional

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of replacing conventional dentures on the masticatory efficiency and the quality of life of the users as well as the influence of the technical quality of the prostheses on these variables. Material and Methods: The prospective clinical trial was conducted with 54 edentulous patients undergoing oral rehabilitation with conventional dentures in the Department of Dentistry, University Federal of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). The selected patients were evaluated on their pre-treatment (T1) with their old dentures. After rehabilitation with new prostheses, those patients were evaluated after 3 months of use (T2), 6 months of use (T3) and 1 year of use (T4). The masticatory efficiency was evaluated according to the colorimetric method using beads as the artificial testing food, the oral health impact profile was measured by OHIP-Edent and the quality of dentures was analyzed by an objective method. The results of masticatory efficiency, OHIP-Edent and quality of the prostheses were analyzed using non-parametric tests of Friedman and Wilcoxon. Since the correlation between the dependent variables was obtained through the Spearman correlation. Results: There was no significant difference in masticatory efficiency (p = 0.814), but significant differences in the values of OHIP-Edent before and after treatment (p = 0.001) and values the technical quality of the prosthesis (p = 0.001) were observed. Conclusion: The replacement of the prosthesis resulted in no improvement in masticatory efficiency. However, the quality of life of patients, correlated with the technical quality of the prosthesis was significantly improved.