Oral Health Related Quality of Life in Patients Infected With HIV, IRAN: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: In recent years, life expectancy of patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) increased. They experienced oral manifestations that could affect their Oral Health Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL). This study was conducted to evaluate OHRQoL in the patients and its related factors. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, using simple random sampling, we selected 250 patients with HIV from Shiraz Voluntary Counseling and Testing center in 2019. To evaluate their OHRQoL, we used Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index revised for patients with HIV. We assessed the association between the patients' OHRQoL and demographic characteristics. Results: The mean score of the patients' OHRQoL was 24.50±6.25. The worst and the best scores were in psychosocial and pain categories, respectively. In univariate analysis, the OHRQoL significantly associated with the patients' age (p=0.005), duration of disease (p=0.008), job (p=0.010), edentulous status (p=0.002), and wearing denture (p<0.001). However, in multiple linear regression analysis, we found only a significant difference between participants wearing and not wearing denture (p=<0.001).Conclusions: The participants declared that they satisfied from averagely 70% of items of OHRQoL. The OHRQoL was significantly better in the patients wearing denture. The finding highlighted the importance of fulfillment of dental needs on improving OHRQoL. Therefore, planning of dental services for patients with HIV is essential so that they have timely access to oral health care. Furthermore, authorities should consider denture as an unmet need in the patients and provide facilities to help the patients to become denture owners.