Patient-Based Outcomes

Abstract

Patient-oriented outcomes focus on the patients’ ‘lived experience’ of medical or dental conditions rather than metrics such as prosthesis survival, operator perceived acceptability or physiological outcomes. Patient-oriented outcomes can provide important insight into how it is to live with a condition and also the management of a condition. This is perhaps most important when considering chronic conditions where treatment does not aim to cure the condition but has the intention of allowing the patient to live with it more easily [1]. Treatment of patients with tooth loss is an example of such a chronic condition where ‘palliative care’ rather than ‘cure’ is the intended outcome. This may be valuable in informing treatment planning decisions, refocusing towards aspects of treatment which are most important to the patient, their families and carers. In the research setting, it is a process that may be used to assess and assure the quality of care delivered and ensure that the objectives which patients value most are prioritised over those a clinician may have otherwise considered best [2].

This chapter examines both qualitative and quantitative examples of patient-oriented outcomes and considers these alongside patient expectations. In doing this it becomes clear that having an understanding of the patients’ lived experience of implant-assisted overdentures is crucial to understanding their value and essential when providing prospective patients with accurate information to enable them to give truly informed consent. Whilst it is important for patients to know that their implant may have a 98% chance of surviving for 5 years after placement, it is probably more important for patients to understand the likely effects of implant-assisted overdentures on their quality of life as reported by patients’ and are possibly the best means of countering unrealistic patient expectations.