Changes in preschool children's oral health-related quality of life following restorative dental general anaesthesia

Background Early childhood caries is the most common childhood disease in preschool children which often requires dental treatment under restorative dental general anaesthesia (RDGA). Aim To assess the effect of RDGA on preschool children and their families' oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL). Methods A cross-sectional study using a RDGA pre- and post-operative survey to evaluate changes in OHRQoL. Parents completed the Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale (ECOHIS) survey before and after their children underwent specialist paediatric RDGA in the United Arab Emirates from 1 March 2017 to 28 February 2018. The ECOHIS and its effect size (ES) served to evaluate children's OHRQoL status and changes, and the Wilcoxon signed-rank and the Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for statistical analyses. Results The mean number of decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFT) of the children (N = 173, mean age 4.6 years) before the treatment was very high (13.8 ± 3.07). Children's pain and eating problems, and parents feeling upset and guilty, were the most frequently reported impacts at baseline. The ECOHIS scores decreased significantly (p <0.001) after RDGA, revealing a large ES for the child (2.19) and family (2.79) sections of the ECOHIS. Conclusions Preschool children's RDGA resulted in significant improvement in all child and family physical, psychological and social aspects of OHRQoL.