A comparative study of aesthetic perceptions of malocclusion among general practice dentists, orthodontists and the public using a visual analogue scale (VAS) and the IOTN-AC

BACKGROUND: Perception of malocclusion varies among individuals and among patients and practitioners. Although several indices that tend to coincide in many aspects and unify criteria, no single index has been recognised as the most suitable for assessing orthodontic treatment need. Moreover, orthodontists are not always aware of the differences in perception of malocclusion between patients and practitioners. OBJETIVES: To examine the perception of dental anaesthetics amongst dentists, orthodontists and the general population, study the relationship between the perception of dental aesthetics and the severity of the malocclusion, using the visual analogue scale and the IOTN-AC, and investigate relationships among the resulting data. STUDY DESIGN: Frontal intraoral photographs of 24 cases were classified by the severity of their malocclusion according to the DAI index. The photographs were examined by 150 individuals (30 orthodontists, 30 general dental practitioners and 90 members of the general population), who assessed them on a visual analogue scale and according to the IOTN-AC. RESULTS: The orthodontists gave the lowest scores on the visual analogue scale, although the differences between the three groups were not significant. For DAI grades 1, 3 and 4, significant differences were found in the IOTN-AC assessments. Here too, the orthodontist group was the most critical. CONCLUSIONS: In general, in all three groups, both the visual analogue scale and IOTN-AC scores increased or decreased in line with the severity of the malocclusion according to the DAI. However, the correlation between these scores was low. The orthodontists scored the malocclusions more critically than the general dentists or the general population with the IOTN-AC, but this difference was not found with the visual analogue scale. Key words:IOTN-AC, DAI, malocclusion.