Original article
Dental esthetics, orthodontic treatment, and oral-health attitudes in young adults

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajodo.2004.05.023Get rights and content

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate whether young adults with varying dental esthetics and histories of orthodontic treatment also differ in oral-health attitudes, preventive behaviors, and self-perceived oral health. Methods: The sample comprised 298 young adults, 18 to 30 years old, with at least 13 years of primary and secondary school education. The subjects were asked to complete questionnaires dealing with various measures related to oral-health attitudes, preventive behaviors, and perceptions of oral health. Dental esthetics were assessed by means of the aesthetic component of the index of orthodontic treatment need. Dental plaque accumulation was assessed in a subsample of respondents. Results: Subjects with high dental-esthetics scores reported more favorable oral-health attitudes, such as internal control, dental awareness, value of occlusion, and preventive behavior expectations than subjects with lower scores. Subjects with previous orthodontic treatment showed greater internal control and dental awareness than those who had not previously been treated. Subjects ranking high in dental esthetics and those with previous orthodontic treatment reported stricter oral-hygiene adherence than others. Self-perceived oral health was better in high scorers on dental esthetics. Less plaque accumulation was found in subjects with higher dental esthetic scores and in those with previous orthodontic treatment. Conclusions: These findings suggest that favorable dental esthetics and previous orthodontic treatment might be important variables in explaining individual differences in oral-health attitudes and behaviors.

Section snippets

Material and methods

Our subjects were 298 young adults aged 18 to 30 years (mean 25.04, SD 3.19); 57.6% were women, and 42.4% were men. The sample was homogenous with respect to level of education, comprising at least 13 years of primary and secondary school. Of the sample, 58.7% had a history of orthodontic treatment lasting on average 3.85 years (SD 2.05) and completed 9.25 years (SD 4.11) before the interview. The questionnaires were administered to the subjects individually, and the interviewers were male

Results

The Figure shows the IOTN-AC grades of the whole sample and the subgroups with and without history of orthodontic treatment. There was no statistically significant difference in IOTN-AC grades between the respondents with and without previous orthodontic treatment (χ2 = 5.31, P = .26).

The results of the 2-factor ANOVA with oral-health attitudes as the dependent variables are shown in Table I. With regard to the dental-health locus of control, in contrast to the respondents with low-ranking

Discussion

We examined whether young adults differing in dental esthetics and in history of orthodontic treatment might be distinguished in their oral-health attitudes, reported adherence to oral-health preventive behavior, and self-perceptions of oral health. The instruments used to assess oral health-related variables are primarily subjective perceptions of the study subjects. Both preventive behavior reports and self-perception of oral health, however, are regarded as sufficiently sensitive measures

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