Dental treatment under general anaesthesia: the short-term change in young children's oral-health-related quality of life

Aim: This was to assess the short-term change in children’s oral-health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) and family impact after dental treatment under general anaesthesia (GA) in the Netherlands. Study design: A pretest-posttest design was used. Methods: Children (<8 years) referred to a clinic for specialized paediatric dentistry and who needed treatment under GA were selected to participate and divided across two groups. Fifty out of 80 parents/children couples participated, one group of parents filled out the questionnaires on behalf of their child before and after treatment (N=31), and the other group only after treatment (N=19). The questionnaires used were the Children’s Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS) and Parental Perceptions Questionnaire and Family Impact Scale (PPQ and FIS, forming the OHRQoL score). The oral health was assessed using the decayed-missing-filled surfaces or teeth index (dmfs/dmft) for the primary dentition from the status praesens after treatment. Results: There was a significant difference between the pre- and posttest-scores in group A for both the short version and the long version (short: t=5.088, df=20, p<0.001 and long: t=6.279, df=20, p<0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in CFSS-DS scores before and after treatment (group A) (t=1.815, df=13, p=0.093). Conclusions: The children’s OHRQoL improved after treatment under GA according to their parents. As expected, dental fear did not change and should be dealt with after treatment to avoid a child’s dental fear to persist in the future. A shorter version of the PPQ and FIS seems useful to assess OHRQoL in very young children.