doiSerbia

Self-perception and satisfaction with dental appearance and aesthetics with respect to patients’ age, gender, and level of education

Strajnić Ljiljana (Faculty of Medicine, Clinic for Dentistry of Vojvodina, Novi Sad)
Bulatović Dijana (Faculty of Medicine, Clinic for Dentistry of Vojvodina, Novi Sad)
Stančić Ivica (Faculty of Dental Medicine, Clinic for Prosthodontics, Belgrade)
Živković Rade (Faculty of Dental Medicine, Clinic for Prosthodontics, Belgrade)

Introduction. Patient’s subjective evaluation of dental appearance and aesthetics is becoming an increasingly important factor in aesthetic treatments and prosthetic therapy. Objective. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of age, education level, gender, and different dental status and the appearance of the upper anterior teeth (color, size, shape, position and alignment of the anterior teeth) on the satisfaction of the respondents with dental appearance and aesthetics of their upper anterior teeth and their desire for improvement. Methods. The study encompassed 480 people aged 20 to 50 years with an average age of 30.84 years. There were 236 male and 244 female subjects. The respondents were interviewed using a questionnaire specially designed for the purpose of this research. For the study, the subjects were divided into the following three age groups: the younger age group (20-30 years of age), the middle age group (31-40 years of age), and the older age group (41-50 years of age). Results. The conducted study did not reveal statistical significance with respect to gender in any of the examined parameters (p > 0.05). A little more than one half of the respondents in each age group were satisfied with their dental appearance and aesthetics (60.3% of the respondents in the age group of 20-30 years, 55.7% in the age group of 31-40, and 53.7% in the age group of 41-50 years of age). Satisfaction with dental appearance and aesthetics increases linearly with the increase in the level of education and was the highest among the respondents with university degree (33.3%). Conclusion. Female respondents were more dissatisfied with their dental appearance and aesthetics as compared with male respondents, but the difference was found to be non-significant. Patients with higher education level were more satisfied with their dental appearance and aesthetics than those with lower education.

Keywords: dental aesthetics, dental appearance, anterior teeth, self-perception, tooth color