Patients' perception of orthodontic mini implants at different sites: anterior vs posterior maxilla

The aim of this study was to compare patients' overall perception of treatment with orthodontic mini implants placed in the maxillary anterior or posterior region. Twenty young adult patients were divided into 2 groups (n = 10). In group 1 (G1), mini implants were placed in the maxillary anterior midline just below the labial frenum. In group 2 (G2), mini implants were placed bilaterally in the maxillary posterior region, between the maxillary second premolar and first molar at the mucogingival junction. Questionnaires were used to record patient experiences with the mini implants at 3 time points: immediately after placement, 1 week after placement, and immediately after removal. Patients were offered 3 choices representing different levels of intensity. The patients were also asked to record their responses on a scale of 0 to 10 for each parameter evaluated. Each unit was subdivided into units of 10. A score of 0 indicated the best response and 10 indicated the worst response. Statistical analyses included the Student t and chi-square tests. Patients in G2 reported greater discomfort during mini implant placement than did patients in G1 (P = 0.036). During the following week, some patients experienced a bad taste at the site, rated significantly worse in G2 than in G1 (P = 0.043). There was also a statistically significant difference between the 2 groups (P = 0.032) in response to a question about the overall experience of the procedure, with G2 rating it better than G1; in the anterior region, the patients had a mean score of 2.00 (SD, 1.29; 95% CI, 0.22 to 3.78); and in the posterior region, they had a mean score of 0.00 (SD, 0.00; 95% CI, 0.81 to 3.19). There were no statistically significant differences in the distributions of responses for any measured outcome between G1 and G2. At mini implant removal, a greater number of patients in G2 than in G1 found the entire procedure to be somewhat different (unfamiliar) compared with other routine orthodontic procedures (P = 0.004). Despite the scores for the question on overall experience, the responses to questions about individual aspects of treatment indicated that patients with mini implants placed in the anterior region had a better experience than did patients with mini implants placed in the posterior region.