Acta Odontologica Scandinavica最新文献

Objectives: This study aimed to translate and adapt the Malocclusion Impact Questionnaire (MIQ) into Finnish; to estimate its psychometric properties when applied to Finnish adolescents; and to estimate the effect of demographic characteristics on the perceived impact of malocclusion.

Methods: The Finnish version of MIQ (MIQ-Fi) was established through translation, back-translation, and a pilot study. Psychometric properties were estimated using factorial validity (confirmatory factor analysis [CFA]), convergent validity (Average Variance Extracted [AVE]), and reliability (αordinal and ω). Structural Equation Model estimated the effect of demographic characteristics on malocclusion impact.

Results: A total of 268 Finnish adolescents participated in the study (mean age = 13.4 [standard deviation, SD = 1.5] years, 48.5% girls). MIQ-Fi factor model presented an adequate fit to the data after refinements (CFA: comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.96, Tucker-Lewis index [TLI] = 0.95, standardized root mean square residual [SRMR] = 0.08, exclusion of 4 items and 1 correlation between items error). Convergent validity (AVE = 0.61) and reliability (αordinal and ω ≥ 0.90) were adequate. Gender and self-reported need for orthodontic treatment had moderate effects on malocclusion impact (βstandardized = 0.36 and 0.30, respectively, p < 0.01), while other demographic characteristics had weak effects (βstandardized < |0.18|, p < 0.04).

Conclusion: MIQ-Fi demonstrated adequate psychometric properties and can measure malocclusion impact in Finnish adolescents. Demographic characteristics had weak to moderate effect on the malocclusion impact.

Background: Oral health is fundamental to children's health and well-being. Parental knowledge, awareness, and practices towards oral habits significantly influence children's oral health. Early diagnosis and intervention to break abnormal oral habits are vital to prevent long-term detrimental effects on oral and facial development.

Objective: This study aimed to assess parents' knowledge, awareness, and attitudes towards their children's oral habits in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study design was employed, where 2,000 participants were enrolled, of whom 563 Saudi mothers residing in Riyadh met the inclusion criteria. A validated, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on demographics, child information, parental awareness, and parental attitudes.  Results: Regarding awareness, moderate overall awareness was reported among mothers, with the majority (over 70%) correctly identifying the negative effects of prolonged pacifier/bottle use and other habits on children's oral health. As for the attitudes, most mothers recognized the importance of stopping sucking habits (digit and/or pacifier) by 18 months and agreed that persistent oral habits cause malocclusion and growth problems. However, a significant gap existed between knowledge and practice, with most mothers (92.9%) never consulting a dentist regarding their child's ongoing oral habits. Mothers with higher education levels reported encouraging their children to stop habits and documented improvements observed after habit cessation.  Conclusions: Although most mothers demonstrated moderate awareness of the detrimental effects of prolonged oral habits, a clear gap remains between knowledge and practice. This study emphasizes the need for educational programs to improve parental knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding children's oral habits. Additionally, addressing cultural beliefs and cost barriers to dental treatment could increase the utilization of dental services, improving children's oral health.

Aims: Little attention has been paid to patients' perception of function and esthetics with single dental implants. The aim of this study was therefore to describe patient-reported function and esthetic outcomes in single dental implants. A second aim was to study the objective esthetics in single dental implants.

Material and methods: Patients with one single dental implant in the esthetic zone were selected. Two questionnaires with visual analog scales (VAS) were filled in by the patients, and intraoral photographs were taken. One of the questionnaires related to satisfaction with cleaning and function, and the other involved the esthetics of the single dental implant. One dentist reviewed the photographs using the pink esthetic score/white esthetic score (PES/WES) index.  Results: For chewing and for speaking, the scores were 8.8 and 9.9 respectively on a VAS (best 10). The overall esthetic score on a VAS was 8.6 (best 10). The PES/WES in the present study was 14.6 (standard deviation [SD] ± 1.9), and 3/45 (6.7%) of the single dental implants never reached clinical acceptability.  Conclusions: Patients reported high satisfaction with both the function and the esthetics of single dental implants. Both subjectively and objectively, the peri-implant mucosa was less favorable compared with the crown.

Background: The dependence on the illicit drugs has been proven to be harmful to the oral cavity and may lead to a series of abnormal manifestations. The main objective of this study was to observe the effects caused by the consumption of illicit drugs in the oral cavity, in a prison population in the North of Portugal.

Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted involving 91 male inmates aged 25-75 years (mean age 41.14 ± 8.98), from Paços de Ferreira Prison. The participants were subjected to a medical interview and a clinical examination. Descriptive statistics and the Chi-square test were used to assess the association between the qualitative variables. The level of statistical significance used was α ≤ 0.05.

Results: The consumption of illicit drugs proved to be a common practice (86.8%), where cannabis, heroin and cocaine were the most prevalent (29.1%). Thirty-one inmates were attending the methadone rehabilitation program (34.1%). Most of patients consuming illicit substances, were also smokers (93.7%) (p<.001). Of the 91 participants, 82 (90.1%) presented oral manifestations, with caries lesions being the most prevalent (61.0%) and oral mucosa lesions the least observed (3.7%). Heavy drug consumption was related with rampant caries lesion (p=.011) and chewing difficulty (p=.024) when compared with cannabis consumption.

Conclusion: The main oral manifestations found, associated to the consumption of illicit drugs were caries lesions, tooth loss and sensitivity, periodontal diseases, temporomandibular disorders, xerostomia, and bruxism.

Objective: To describe the oral health status of patients with obesity and to explore the socio-demographic characteristics, comorbidities, lifestyle habits (tobacco, alcohol, sweet/acidic diet), and saliva parameters most associated with the dental caries experience.  Material and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 204 patients' data with obesity attending a therapeutic education programme. Caries experience (number of decayed, missing, and filled teeth [DMFT]), periodontal status, oral hygiene, occlusal tooth wear, masticatory inefficiency, and saliva parameters were recorded.

Results: Mean DMFT was 12 ± 7 and was independently associated with age (mean 47 ± 14 years; for 1 standard deviation (SD) increase: β = 0.22, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.16-0.29), female sex (72%; β = 3.76, 95% CI = 1.65-5.87), brushing <2 times/day (35%; β = 2.86, 95% CI = 0.81-4.90), salivary buffering capacity (low [46%] vs. normal [40%]: β = 2.02, 95% CI = 0.08-3.95; very low [10%] vs. normal: β = 3.34, 95% CI = 0.31-6.37), and salivary consistency (bubbly [30%] vs. clear [57%]: β = 2.45, 95% CI = 0.52-4.38).

Conclusions: Improving patients' competencies for oral care, such as teeth brushing twice daily, is necessary to limit the burden of dental caries in individuals with obesity. Acting on salivary composition may also be of interest, and further studies are required to explore the underlying mechanisms.

Objectives: Approximal caries diagnosis in children is difficult, and artificial intelligence-based research in pediatric dentistry is scarce. To create a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based diagnostic system for the prompt and efficient identification of approximal caries in pediatric patients aged 5-12 years.

Materials and methods: Pediatric patients' digital periapical radiographic images were collected to create a unique dataset. Various augmentation methods were used, and approximal caries in the augmented images were labeled by a pediatric dentist to minimize labeling errors. The dataset consisted of 830 data labeled for approximal caries on 415 images, which were divided into 80% training and 20% testing sets. After comparing 13 detection algorithms, including the latest YOLOv8, the most appropriate one was selected for the proposed system, which was then evaluated based on various performance metrics.

Results: The proposed detection system achieved a precision of 91.2%, an accuracy of 90.8%, a recall of 89.3%, and an F1 value of 90.24% after 300 iterations, utilizing a learning rate of 0.01.

Conclusion: Approximal caries has been successfully detected with the developed system. Future efforts will focus on augmenting the dataset and expanding the sample size to enhance the efficacy of the system.

Objective: This study aimed to gain knowledge of general oral health preventive measures with a specific focus on root caries preventive measures for patients ≥65 years old, performed by Norwegian dental hygienists in public and private dental health services. A secondary aim was to investigate differences and challenges in prevention practices.  Materials and methods: An electronic survey was conducted among the sample in 2022. A total of 365 dental hygienists were included in the analyses. Chi-square tests were used to analyze differences between private and public dental hygienists regarding preventive measures and perceived challenges.  Results: The most frequently reported general oral health preventive measures were oral hygiene instruction, professional tooth cleaning and scaling. Oral hygiene instruction and application of fluoride varnish were the most performed root caries preventive measure, and reduced manual dexterity in patients was the most perceived challenge. Public dental hygienists perceived challenges to a greater extent than private dental hygienists, particularly related to reduced mobility and ergonomic difficulties in patients.  Conclusion: This study confirms dental hygienists' important role in oral health promotion and showed that Norwegian dental hygienists performed a wide range of preventive measures for patients ≥65 years old. However, a number of challenges were identified in the preventive work.

Objectives: The aim was to provide an in-depth characterization of patients hospitalized with severe odontogenic infections (SOI), especially in relation to the origin of the infection. Furthermore, the aim was to generate an overview of which kind of treatment the patients had received before hospitalization and to analyze risk factors for prolonged length of hospital stay.

Material and methods: The study was a retrospective cross-sectional study, which included patients hospitalized at the University Hospital of Copenhagen, Denmark, with SOI from November 2012 through 2019. Data were extracted from medical hospital records. Analysis was performed using the χ2 test, analysis of variance, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), and logistic regression.

Results: A total of 384 eligible patients were included. The most frequent origin of infection was apical periodontitis (46.9%), infection after tooth extraction (25.8%), multiple infectious foci (8.6%), and pericoronitis (6.0%). Significant differences in concomitant diseases (p = 0.017) were found between the groups of origin of infection. The MCA model showed little to no ability to generate an in-depth characterization of the group of patients. Eleven patients (2.9%) were treated with incision and drainage before hospitalization, and 131 patients (34.3%) received no kind of antibiotic before hospitalization.

Conclusion: The results indicate that clusters of variables could not be related to the origin of infection. In general, patients received insufficient treatment before hospitalization. Future studies should define risk factors for developing SOI and examine dental records of dental treatment before hospitalization.

Clinical relevance: To improve prehospital treatment with patients with SOI, general dental practitioners should treat the origin of the infection, attempt drainage, and optimize the prescription of antibiotics.

Objective: To explore patients' experiences of dental staff recognising their dental anxiety.

Material and methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 adults who identified themselves as dentally anxious. The sampling of study participants was purposive, and the audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim. Classical grounded theory and constant comparative analysis were used to analyse the interview data inductively. Theoretical saturation was reached after eight interviews.

Results: Hope for 'Fingerspitzengefühl' from the dental staff emerged as the core category, which means having an intuitive instinct about a situation and knowing how to react to it. It also is tact or sensitivity that comes with experience. The foundation for this core was four categories: Dental anxiety causes involuntary signals, Strategies to minimise contact, Seen and respected by the staff, and Recognisable strategies. The interviewees hoped that the dental staff would notice their dental anxiety and understand their feelings of shame, and take relevant actions to alleviate their anxiety.

Conclusions: Dentally anxious patients often struggle to express their anxiety but hope to find a dentist with Fingerspitzengefühl. The result cannot be generalised but transferred to a similar population.

Objective: Third molar extraction is a common procedure with occasional complications. This study aimed to determine the incidence and types of complications in challenging lower third molar extractions and to identify complication risk factors in tertiary hospital patients.

Material and methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 354 patients who underwent unilateral lower third molar extraction during a 2-year period in 2018-2019 at Helsinki University Hospital. The outcome was the presence of a complication, and patient-related and operation-related variables served as determinants. Statistical analyses included Mann-Whitney U and Chi-squared tests, and binary logistic regression.

Results: Complications occurred in 16.7% of patients. The most common complication was local infection (7.6%), followed by nerve injury (5.6%). The complication risk was 3.7-fold (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.97-6.77, p < 0.001) higher in extractions defined as demanding than in routine operative extraction. If the third molar was acutely infected, the complication risk increased 2.0-fold (95% CI 1.08-3.75, p = 0.027).

Conclusions: Due to the high rate of complications in challenging extractions, scheduling a follow-up visit is important, and risk factors must be considered properly, especially in demanding extractions and in acutely infected third molars.