Positive and negative affect and oral health-related quality of life

BACKGROUND: The aims of the study were to assess the impact of both positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) on self-reported oral health-related quality of life and to determine the effect of including affectivity on the relationship between oral health-related quality of life and a set of explanatory variables consisting of oral health status, socio-economic status and dental visiting pattern. METHODS: A random sample of 45-54 year-olds from metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia was surveyed by mailed self-complete questionnaire during 2004-05 with up to four follow-up mailings of the questionnaire to non-respondents (n = 986 responded, response rate = 44.4%). Oral health-related quality of life was measured using OHIP-14 and affectivity using the Bradburn scale. Using OHIP-14 and subscales as the dependent variables, regression models were constructed first using oral health status, socio-economic characteristics and dental visit pattern and then adding PA and NA as independent variables, with nested models tested for change in R-squared values. RESULTS: PA and NA exhibited a negative correlation of -0.49 (P < 0.01). NA accounted for a larger percentage of variance in OHIP-14 scores (3.0% to 7.3%) than PA (1.4% to 4.6%). In models that included both PA and NA, PA accounted for 0.2% to 1.1% of variance in OHIP-14 scores compared to 1.8% to 3.9% for NA. CONCLUSION: PA and NA both accounted for additional variance in quality of life scores, but did not substantially diminish the effect of established explanatory variables such as oral health status, socio-economic status and dental visit patterns.