Effects of oral health promotion programmes on adolescents' oral health-related quality of life: A systematic review.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the effects of oral health promotion programmes (OHPP) on adolescents' oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL).

METHODS

An electronic search was performed in five databases (MEDLINE via PubMed, Scopus, Virtual Health Library, Web of Science, Cochrane, Grey Literature databases), and specific indexers were used in the manual search. Clinical/community trials, cross-sectional or cohort studies, published in any language, were included. Studies meeting the inclusion criteria were analysed for quality and bias risk.

RESULTS

From a total of 2343 abstracts, 4 articles were selected for quality evaluation including 2 studies classified with low, 1 with moderate and 1 with high methodological quality. The qualitative synthesis showed some methodological biases and heterogeneous interventions. Effective OHPP improve OHRQoL. The association of educational and dental care strategies generated greater positive effects on OHRQoL than those related only to treatment or isolated educational practices.

CONCLUSION

Although studies showed positive effects of OHPP on adolescents' OHRQoL, both their shortage and low methodological quality indicates the need for developing other well-designed studies to investigate the present question. Record number in PROSPERO database (CRD42018084434).