The perceptions of preclinical and clinical dental students to altered smile aesthetics

INTRODUCTION: This prospective cohort study was designed to identify which components of a smile make it more or less aesthetically acceptable to dental students. AIM: To investigate whether students at different stages of their undergraduate dental education held similar views on smile aesthetics. Additionally, to see whether students from the same ethnicity were more likely to have similar perceptions of smile aesthetics than students from different backgrounds. METHODOLOGY: Dental students in either Year 1 (preclinical) or Year 5 (clinical) of their studies at the University of Bristol were asked to complete a questionnaire. Students were asked to rank 12 photographic images in order from most aesthetically pleasing (1) to least pleasing (12). The 12 images included one ‘ideal’ smile and 11 digitally altered images of the same “ideal” smile. RESULTS: A total of 123 questionnaires were completed. Clinical students were more likely to rank the ‘ideal smile’ as more aesthetically pleasing and identify it as the “best” smile from the set of images. Preclinical students considered retroclined incisors to be significantly less pleasing than clinical year students, whilst clinical year students found a midline diastema significantly less pleasing than preclinical students. CONCLUSIONS: Dental students at different stages of their undergraduate dental education have different perceptions of smile aesthetics. There was no evidence that the perception of dental attractiveness was affected by students’ ethnicities or location of upbringing.