engleski

Quality of life related to smile aesthetics - construction and validation of a new short psychometric instrument

AIMS: Orofacial aesthetics raises psychosocial issues. The purpose of this study was to create and validate new short instrument for patient reported outcome measures of psychosocial impacts of altered smile aesthetics. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: A team of four experts ; an orthodontist, two prosthodontists and psychologist, and a dental student attending the final semester generated items that could draw up specific hypothetical psychosocial dimensions (69 items initially, 39 in final analysis). The sample consisted of 261 Caucasian subjects attending local high schools and university (26% male) in the 14-28 year age range that self- administrated the designed questionnaire. Factorial analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson correlation, paired samples t-test and analysis of variance were used for analyses. RESULTS: Three dimensions of psychosocial impacts of altered smile aesthetics were identified: dental selfconsciousness, dental self-confidence and social contacts, which can best be fitted by 12 items, four items in each dimension. Internal consistency was good (α in range 0.85-0.89). The new instrument is able to detect some problems related to impaired smile aesthetics. The increase of the degree of self-perceived impairment of the aesthetic component of malocclusion leads to an increase in self- consciousness and a decrease in selfconfidence (P ≤ 0.007). Good stability was confirmed. CONCLUSION: The new instrument, Smile Esthetics- Related Quality of Life, is short and has proven to be a good indicator of psychosocial dimensions related to perception of smile aesthetics. It might have practical validity when applied in aesthetic dental clinical procedures.

esthetics, quality of life, smile

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