Oral health related quality of life among imprisoned Dutch forensic psychiatric patients

Because dental health and oral pathology may affect forensic psychiatric patients' well being, it is important to be able to assess oral health related quality of life (OH-QoL) in these patients. Two studies were conducted among Dutch forensic psychiatric male patients to assess the psychometric properties and some potential predictors of the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14) as a measure of OH-QoL. Study 1 involved 40 patients who completed the OHIP-14 before receiving professional dental care and were retested 3 months later. The internal consistency was good, the test-retest correlations were fair, and over the 3 months follow-up no significant changes in OH-QoL were observed. Study 2 consisted of 39 patients who completed an improved version of the original OHIP-14, as well as measures to validate of the OHIP. Dental anxiety and unhealthy dentition jointly explained 26.7% of the variance in OH-QoL, and the better patients performed their oral hygiene behavior, the better their OH-QoL. It is concluded that the Dutch OHIP-14 is a useful instrument, and that nurses, especially in forensic nursing, should pay particularly attention to dental anxiety when encouraging patients to visit OH professionals and to perform adequate oral hygiene self-care.