Community Dental Health

cover art

Cover Date:
June 2006
Print ISSN:
0265 539X
Vol:
23
Issue:
2

The impact of fixed orthodontic appliances on daily life

Objective: i) To develop a measure of the impact of fixed orthodontic appliances on daily life. ii) To assess the impact of fixed appliances over time after initial appliance placement. iii) To investigate factors that may influence the impact of fixed appliances (age, gender and socioeconomic status). Research design: Questionnaire. Clinical setting: University Dental Hospital and Hope Hospital, Manchester. Sample: Sixty-six patients, whose orthodontic appliances had just been placed. Twenty-eight patients whose orthodontic appliances were in place for at least six months were used for the reliability study. Method: The Impact of Fixed Appliances Questionnaire was developed using standard qualitative methods and pre-tested on 10 patients. This resulted in a questionnaire with nine conceptual impact sub-scales: aesthetic, functional limitation, dietary, oral hygiene, maintenance, physical, social, time constraints and travel/cost. The questionnaire was piloted on 66 patients, at the first, second and third visits after their fixed appliance had been placed, to assess the impact of fixed appliances over time. Questionnaire reliability, over a one-month time interval, was assessed on 40 patients who had been in treatment for at least six months. Main outcome measure: Impact of fixed appliances on daily life. Results:. The internal reliability of the questionnaire ranged from moderate to very good (Cronbach’s alpha 0.56-0.89). Test-retest reliability was stable for most subscales (intra-class correlation coefficient 0.26-0.65). The questionnaire was said to have face validity and also content validity because of the method of questionnaire development through interviewing children with fixed appliances. None of the subscales scores reduced over time except aesthetic impact (p< 0.05) but this was probably not a clinically significant change. Age was the predominant variable to influence the impact of fixed appliances with younger children being less affected during their daily life (p<0.05). Conclusions: The questionnaire developed in this study is a reliable tool for assessing the impact of fixed appliances on the daily life of children. It is unlikely that the impact of fixed appliances on daily life reduces as the patient progresses through treatment. Younger patients are probably more adaptable to treatment with fixed appliances, in terms of reduced impact on daily life, so arguably treatment should be started as early as possible. This information could also be used to educate, reassure and motivate patients at the start of treatment.

Key words: Aesthetics, fixed appliances, function, oral impact

Article Price
£15.00
Institution Article Price
£
Page Start
67
Page End
74
Authors
N A Mandall, S Vine, R Hulland, H V Worthington

Articles from this issue

  • Title
  • Pg. Start
  • Pg. End

  1. Editorial - Providing children with the quality dental care they deserve
  2. 66
  3. 68

  1. The impact of fixed orthodontic appliances on daily life
  2. 67
  3. 74

  1. Service quality implications of dental undergraduate outreach teaching for Primary Care Trusts in England, UK.
  2. 75
  3. 79

  1. Prevalence of hypodontia and hyperdontia in paedodontic and orthodontic patients in Budapest
  2. 80
  3. 82

  1. Psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the Dental Cognition Questionnaire
  2. 83
  3. 90

  1. Dental caries experience in preschool children in Veneto region (Italy)
  2. 91
  3. 94

  1. Improving access to dental care in East London’s ethnic minority groups: community based, qualitative study
  2. 95
  3. 100

  1. The unequal burden related to the risk of oral cancer in the different regions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  2. 101
  3. 106

  1. Can oral health promotion help develop masticatory function and prevent dental caries?
  2. 107
  3. 115

  1. The equity of access to primary dental care for children in the North East of England
  2. 116
  3. 119

  1. Presidential Address
  2. 120
  3. 122