Perception of personal dental appearance in Nigerian adolescents

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among Nigerian adolescents' awareness of malocclusion, their satisfaction with personal dental appearance, and the severity of their occlusal irregularities. The sample consisted of 577 randomly selected secondary school adolescents-306 (53%) boys and 271 (47%) girls aged 12 to 17 years (mean age, 14.73 +/- 1.12). A pretested questionnaire was used to assess the subjects' awareness of malocclusion and satisfaction with personal dental appearance; the actual severity of malocclusion was determined by using the dental aesthetic index (DAI), performed by an orthodontist in a school environment under natural illumination. Statistically significant, negative, weak correlations were found between awareness of malocclusion and satisfaction at the various DAI scores as follows: < or =25 (r = -0.3774, P < .001), 26 to 30 (r = -0.4305, P < .001), 31 to 35 (r = -0.5137, P < .001), and > or =36 (r = -0.5104, P < .001). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) did not show a significant value of any of the 3 factors. Multivariate analysis with age as the covariate did not show a significant effect. Also, the association between socioeconomic status and the variables was not significant ( P > .05). Generally, no statistically significant sex differences were found in relation to the DAI scores, awareness, or satisfaction ( P > .05). Significant, negative, weak correlations were found between Nigerian adolescents' awareness of malocclusion and satisfaction with personal dental appearance at the various severity levels of malocclusion. It would be worthwhile to assess such a relationship with the index of orthodontic treatment need in the Nigerian population.