Dentists' Treatment Decisions Concerning Restorations in Adult Patients in North Norway: A Cross-Sectional Tromsø 7 Study.

Introduction: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to explore the degree whereby dentists differentiate between repair versus replacement for failed restorations. A random selection of adult patients from North Norway was chosen from the larger Tromsø 7 study.

Methods: A randomized sample of 3,653 persons (11.5% of the total number of individuals invited to the Tromsø 7 study, 51.5% women, aged 40-93 years) were included. Based on FDI's clinical criteria for the evaluation of restorations - 2010, 17 calibrated dentists evaluated patients by clinical and radiographical pictures in a specially designed software developed for this purpose. The dental practitioners' opinions gave rise to the reported treatment decisions. Descriptive statistics and multivariable multilevel mixed-effect logistic regression models (STATA 17/SE) were performed.

Results: The participants' DMFT values ranged from 0 (0.9%) to 24 (8.8%) (median DMFT 21.3, mean 20.0). A total of 90.062 teeth (24.7 teeth per patient) were assessed. Re-treatment suggestions were made for 3,006 restorations, i.e., an average of 3.3% re-treatments. Of these, 25.3% (n = 814) were suggested for repair and 74.7% (n = 2,192) for replacement. Dental treatment was suggested for 1,597 patients and varying from 1 to 14 suggestions per patient. Secondary caries (37.6%) and restoration fracture (15.2%) were found to be most frequently used indications for re-treatment, surface properties the least. No significant difference was found between assessing dentists based on sex or age. Clustering by dentist level was checked using intra-class correlation coefficients, demonstrating that 16% of the variance in suggestions for restoration re-treatment was explained at the dentist level. Thus, a wide range of treatment suggestions was noted among the dentists.

Conclusion: Need for restoration revision seems low in North Norway. There is a tendency towards larger and more indirect restorations, and the diagnosis of secondary caries is still a matter of uncertainty.