Contributed Talks: Behavioural Sciences 1
Background: Well-being encompasses pleasurable experiences (hedonic) and living life with purpose, including personal growth (eudaimonic). Measuring the impact of oral health on well-being might offer a more comprehensive understanding of the psychosocial dynamics of inequalities in oral health, beyond the study of impacts on daily functioning.
Aim: To examine the impact of losing teeth and having a denture on a sense of well-being.
Methods: The study involved analysis of twenty interview transcripts from a secondary dataset of individuals experiencing tooth loss and denture replacement (11 male; 9 female; age range 22-86 years; mean 58.9 years). For hedonic well-being, a case study approach was used, summarising each participant's story to capture a holistic perspective on each person’s well-being. Eudaimonic well-being was analysed using a framework approach.
Results: Participant journeys showed how oral health can impact on hedonic well-being through impacts on positive and negative emotions, leading to impacts on overall life satisfaction and, in some instances, impacts on the overall fulfilment of desires. The narratives explicitly addressed some eudaimonic domains (self-acceptance and positive relationships), whilst others could be observed from the background implications of the narratives (autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, and purpose in life). How these domains were affected by oral health enables the examination of pathways towards how inequalities in oral health can impact someone’s life overall (general inequalities). Likewise, the data reveal how overall well-being can affect oral health.
Conclusion: The findings of this study highlight the importance of considering the complex, circular relationship between oral health and well-being. It also reveals how inequalities in oral health may be related to inequalities in general, and how such broad inequalities can impact back on oral health-related well-being.