Can dental treatments improve oral health-related quality of life? A systematic review

Background and aim: oral health-related quality of life (ohrqol) is a practically new but rapidly growing approach. the concept of ohrqol can become a tool to explain and shape the state of clinical practice. this study was aimed to do a systematic review about the impacts of different dental treatments on ohrqol. methods: we searched the databases of pubmed, google scholar, science direct, scopus, cochrane, and thomson reuters web of science up to january 2018 with the medical subject headings (mesh) keywords: “intervention”, “management”, “improvement”, “impact”, “change” in combination with “dentistry” and “oral health-related quality of life”. the reviewers screened the identified publications in three steps according to title, abstract, and full text; thereafter, they extracted all the related data in screened articles and finally classified it according to the field of dental treatment. extracted data were saved in excel software. results: finally, 22 articles were enrolled in the review and based on the type of dental treatment were categorized into three groups: implant and prosthesis, oral surgery, and periodontics and aesthetic; overall, in 72.7% of the studies, improvement of ohrqol was considered. conclusion: the majority of used dental treatments have shown improvement of ohrqol in studied patients.