Discussion
This study aimed to measure and describe the OHR-QoL and to identify complications in conjunction with RDPs 1–5 years after insertion. The most frequent complications were ill-fitting prostheses and inflam-mation of the underlying mucosa. Although ill-fitting prostheses remained a frequent complication in the 5-year period, new complications such as fractures of the acrylic and clasps, severe inflammation and aes-thetic problems with the artificial teeth were found. These complications were also registered in another
study evaluating the quality of RDPs (5). The fracturesmay be a result of fatigue, wear or degradation of the prosthetic materials, which can possibly cause instabil-ity of the RDPs and can thus irritate the oral mucosa. This finding is supported by a study by Frank et al. (16), who demonstrated that poor fit is related to gingival inflammation beneath RDPs. The zone of replaced teeth, number of replaced teeth or the RDP region did not influence the occurrence of complications. Although it was expected that more complications would be found with an increasing number of years after insertion of RDPs, this was not observed. This could, however, be explained by the small sample size or the uneven distribution of participants regarding the number of years since insertion.