Kimon Divaris|Jessica Y. Lee|A. Diane Baker|William F. Vann
The relationship of oral health literacy with oral health-related quality of life in a multi-racial sample of low-income female caregivers
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
investigate association oral health literacy ohl oral healthrelated quality life ohrqol explore racial differences therein among lowincome communitybased group female wic participantsparticipants n 1405 enrolled carolina oral health literacy cohl study completed short form oral health impact profile index ohip14 measure ohrqol reald30 word recognition literacy test sociodemographic selfreported dental attendance data collected via structured interviews severity cumulative ohip14 score extent impact number items reported fairlyvery often scores calculated measures ohrqol ohl assessed cumulative reald30 score association ohl ohrqol examined using descriptive visual methods quantified using spearmans rho zeroinflated negative binomial modelingthe study group included substantial number african americans aa 41 american indians ai 20 sample majority high school education less mean age 266 years onethird participants reported least one oral health impact ohip14 mean severity extent scores 106 95 confidence limits cl 100 112 135 95 cl 121 150 respectively ohl scores distributed normally mean standard deviation sd reald30 158 53 ohl weakly associated ohrqol prevalence rho 014 95 cl 020 008 extent rho 014 95 cl 019 009 severity rho 010 95 cl 016 005 low ohl defined 13 reald30 score associated worse ohrqol increases prevalence ohip14 impacts ranging 11 severity 34 extent inverse association ohl ohip14 impacts persisted multivariate analysis problem rate ratio prr 091 95 cl 086 098 one sd change ohl stratification race revealed effectmeasure modification whitesprr 101 95 cl 091 111 aaprr 086 95 cl 077 096although inverse association ohl ohrqol across entire sample weak subjects low ohl group reported significantly ohrqol impacts versus higher literacy findings indicate association ohl ohrqol may modified race