Sonoyama Wataru, Kuboki Takuo, Okamoto Soichiro, Suzuki Hidenori, Arakawa Hikaru, Kanyama Manabu, Yatani Hirofumi, Yamashita Atsushi
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Rehabilitation, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine and Dentistry, Okayama, Japan.
Clin Oral Implants Res. 2002 Aug;13(4):359-64. doi: 10.1034/j.1600-0501.2002.130403.x.
Dental implants have become increasingly popular in the prosthetic rehabilitation of patients with bounded edentulous spaces. Oral condition-related quality of life (QOL) levels have rarely been assessed in these patients.
Two groups of subjects with bounded edentulous spaces were studied: an implant-supported fixed prosthesis group (11 patients) and a resin-bonded fixed prosthesis group (33 patients). The two groups were well matched in terms of sex, age, missing units and location of missing units. The patients were requested to answer a self-administered QOL questionnaire with two major subscales - oral condition- and general condition-related QOL scores. The test-retest reliability of each question was pre-examined and found acceptable (mean Spearman rank correlation coefficient was 0.55 +/- 0.16). Mean QOL score differences between the two groups were analyzed by the Mann-Whitney U-test.
Mean oral condition-related QOL scores of the implant-supported and resin-bonded fixed prosthesis groups were 87.8 +/- 9.5 and 87.1 +/- 12.3% (P = 0.85), and mean general condition-related QOL scores were 73.8 +/- 14.8 and 71.6 +/- 15.2% (P = 0.95), respectively. No significant QOL differences between the two groups were observed in the two subscales.
In patients with bounded edentulous spaces, multidimensional QOL levels of patients with an implant-supported fixed prosthesis do not exceed those of patients with a resin-bonded fixed prosthesis in a short follow-up period.
