Prevalence, intensity and extent of Oral Impacts on Daily Performances associated with self-perceived malocclusion in 11-12-year-old children

Eight hundred and five children aged 11 to 12 years attending 4 of 7 randomly selected schools linked to a Health Centre in Lima, Peru, participated in the study. The Spanish (Peru)Child-OIDP was used to assess the prevalence, intensity and extent of oral impacts on 8 daily performances (eating, speaking, teeth cleaning, sleeping, smiling, studying, emotion and social contact). Self-perceived malocclusion included complaints about position of teeth, spacing of teeth and deformity of mouth or face. The prevalence of oral impacts was compared by covariables using the Chi-square test, whereas the intensity and extent of oral impacts were compared by covariables through the Mann-Whitney test.Only 15.5% of children reported impacts associated with self-perceived malocclusion during the last 3 months. Of them, 18.4% reported impacts of severe or very severe intensity and 76.0% reported impacts on only one daily performance. Psychosocial activities such as smiling, emotion and social contact were the most frequently and severely impacted everyday activities.Impacts of self-perceived malocclusion primarily affected psychological and social everyday activities. These findings provide further evidence to support the importance of psychological and social components of oral health on children's lives.A better knowledge about the physical, social and psychological effects of malocclusion is important since it provides insights into the perceived impacts of malocclusion on children's lives [1,2]. To date, there is conflicting evidence on the impact of malocclusion on quality of life. A recent review concluded that a greater understanding is required of the physical, psychological and social consequences of malocclusion [3]. Therefore, there is a need for a more comprehensive and rigorous assessments of the impacts of malocclusion on quality of life. These assessments should be done on representative population-based epidemiological samples, rather than using patient-based studie