Online health school classes for dentist-orthopedist patients: the quality-of-life dynamics prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the quality of life (QoL) of Russians, including patients of the orthopedic department of the Rostov-on-Don City Dental Polyclinic, who have installed fixed prosthesis (FP). The organization of online health school (HS) classes for them meant improving the situation by reorienting passive health saving towards active self-preserving behavior basing modern managerial medical and social technologies. Appropriate didactic material was developed and implemented in practice. Quantitative changes in QoL were recorded using the author’s indicator system. The positive perception of online classes by patients has become an introduction to the lifelong system of health saving, which is based not only on improving the general or the health culture, but also on the privatization of health and all its components as material socially significant objects (SSO).

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this prospective medical and social cohort study was to confirm the positive dynamics of the QoL of prosthodontist’ patients after on-line classes at the HS using a process-approach-based quality of life scale (PABQoLS).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: 24 patients who installed the FP attended from 6 to 9 lessons from the full course of the HS, which included 10 didactic units. Sociological control of QoL was carried out before the beginning of the work of the HS and after the end of the classes. The dynamics of the patients’ QoL, expressed through the afferentation gradient (GA), was correlated with the frequency of visits to the HS and reflected graphically using the construction of linear trends.

RESULTS: The intensity of information flows from SSO within the cohort decreased by 56.1% (p <0.01), the positive balance of acquisitions increased by 3.5 times (t=0.9) after HS 3 months’ work. The highest significance (t=6.3) corresponded to a decrease in the flow of information about all losses by 64.6%. The correlation between the visits number (VN) and total AG (“acquisitions” – “losses”) was 0.494 (p <0.05). The ratio of linear trends in the change in the pragmatic and affiliative components of the balance between acquisitions and losses was 10 to 1 in favor of the pragmatic component as the VN of the HS increased.

CONCLUSION: The results of the medico-social study showed the potential of the PABQoLS as an objective and reliable tool for assessing the success of the HS classes in the direction of medicalization of prosthodontist’ patients.