Perceptions of dental esthetics of Asian orthodontists and laypersons

The aim of the study was to determine the impact of anterior dental crowding, overjet, overbite, dental spacing, and type of malocclusion on dental esthetic perceptions of Asian orthodontists.

Twenty-one Asian orthodontists (10 men, 11 women) and 158 adult laypersons (38 men, 120 women) rated the attractiveness of 50 pairs of black-and-white intraoral photographic prints of various types of malocclusions. Each pair included a frontal and a right buccal view of the dentition at maximum intercuspation. Raters used a visual analogue scale (VAS), with "least attractive" (0 mm) and "most attractive" (100 mm) as the 2 extremes, to score the dental esthetics of the photographs. A principal investigator objectively measured the dental traits from study models. Linear regression analysis was performed with VAS scores as the dependent variable and anterior dental crowding, overjet, and overbite measurements as the independent variables. Independent sample t tests were used to determine the effect of dental spacing on the VAS scores. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine the effect of type of malocclusion (Class I, Class II Division 1, Class II Division 2, Class III) on VAS scores.

Increased overjet (>6 mm) and severe maxillary dental crowding (>8 mm) were found to be significantly correlated with laypersons' VAS scores (P <.05). Reverse overjet was found to be significantly correlated with orthodontists' VAS scores (P <.05). No significant correlation was found between overbite, dental spacing, and VAS scores. Class III malocclusions were significantly perceived to be the most unesthetic by orthodontists.

Overjet was the major occlusal trait that influenced the perceptions of dental esthetics of both laypersons and orthodontists.