Patients' expectations of oral implants: a systematic review

Nowadays, oral implants are a leading concept in oral rehabilitation. Patient satisfaction with this treatment is high, but are the expectations of the patients met? The aim of this review was to systematically screen the literature on patients' expectations of implant-based therapy before treatment and to assess whether these expectations were being met.

A search strategy was developed for manuscripts dealing with patients' expectations of implant-based therapy to support different types of prosthodontics. Patients had an indication for implants, were seeking implants or had received implants. PubMed/MEDLINE, Ovid/EMBASE and Cochrane/CENTRAL were searched to identify eligible studies. Two reviewers independently assessed the articles.

In total, 16 out of 3312 studies assessing patients' expectations of patients before implant-based therapy matched the inclusion criteria. A variety of methods were used in the studies. Patients had high expectations, with function followed by aesthetics being the most important expected improvements. Women had higher expectations than men. Costs were a major factor against implant-based therapy. The expectations that implants will last a lifetime and require no special needs of oral hygiene were of concern.

Prior to treatment, patients have high expectations of implant therapy. In general, these expectations are met. Most studies revealed that women have higher expectations than men. The variety of applied study designs impaired comparability of results. Thus, standardised methods for measuring expectations of implant-based therapy are eagerly needed.