Dental esthetic satisfaction, received and desired dental treatments for improvement of esthetics

• Main Authors: Akarslan Zuhre, Sadik Burak, Erten Hulya, Karabulut Erdem
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2009-01-01
• Series: Indian Journal of Dental Research
• Subjects: Bleaching; esthetics; prosthesis; restoration; satisfaction
• Online Access: http://www.ijdr.in/article.asp?issn=0970-9290;year=2009;volume=20;issue=2;spage=195;epage=200;aulast=Akarslan
• ISSN: 0970-9290; 1998-3603

<b>Aim:</b> The purposes of this research were to investigate factors influencing patients&#x2032; satisfaction with their present dental esthetic, received previous dental treatments on anterior teeth and basic treatments that they wanted to undergo to improve their dental appearance. <b> Materials and Methods:</b> A total of 1014 patients who attended a dental school in a major city in Turkey participated in the study. The participants were surveyed with a questionnaire containing questions about gender, age, education level, self-reported tooth appearance, received previous dental treatments on anterior teeth and desired basic esthetic dental treatments. Statistical analysis of the verifying data was made with descriptive statistics, &#967;² test and multiple logistic regression analyses. <b> Results:</b> According to the analyses of the verifying data, 55.1&#x0025; of the patients were dissatisfied with the color of their teeth, 42.7&#x0025; with dental appearance, 29.9&#x0025; with crowding of anterior teeth, 23.3&#x0025; were hiding teeth while smiling, 16.1&#x0025; had non-esthetic restorations and 11.9&#x0025; thought that their anterior teeth were protruding. Esthetic restoration was found to be the most-performed treatment recently (29.0&#x0025;) and whitening of teeth was the most-desired dental treatment (49.0&#x0025;). Gender, age and education level had an effect on satisfaction and received previous and desired dental treatments for improvement of esthetics. <b> Conclusion:</b> Many of the Turkish patients surveyed in the study were dissatisfied and desired the improvement of dental esthetics. Therefore, dentists should consider this as an important dimension in their practice.