Ten years of evidence on patient satisfaction with complete dentures: A scoping review

To update our understanding of the factors influencing complete denture patient satisfaction based on evidence from the past decade.

A scoping review was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines to identify articles from five electronic databases: MEDLINE via the PubMed interface, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane.

Studies on patient satisfaction with complete dentures have gradually increased since 2018, peaking in 2022 and 2023. Randomized clinical trials (43%) were the most prevalent study design, followed by cross-sectional (32.9%) and cohort studies (11.4%). The 79 studies evaluated 16,831 individuals, with 51% female participants aged 30-93 years. Patient satisfaction was assessed using the visual analog scale and Likert scale, accounting for 67% of the assessment methods. The key aspects evaluated included comfort, retention, stability, masticatory function, esthetics, and phonetics. The main independent variables associated with satisfaction were fabrication, impression techniques, occlusal schemes, number of follow-ups, gender, age, oral condition, educational level, health history, personality and psychological factors, denture experience, socioeconomic status, dentist experience and communication skills, use of adhesives, and denture hygiene. All the included studies were judged to have a low risk of bias.

Patient satisfaction with complete dentures is influenced by clinical techniques, patient- and dentist-related factors, and prosthesis conditions. Comfort, retention, stability, mastication, and esthetics were the most consistent determinants, whereas emerging evidence suggests that digital workflows may contribute positively.