High-quality complete dentures do not guarantee patient satisfaction: Study

Rehabilitation of edentulous patients has always been a challenge. The success of conventional complete denture therapy might be affected by several factors such as patients' age, personality, previous denture wearing experience, expectations, aesthetics, residual ridge form and anatomy, denture quality, the method of its construction, dentist experience, and dentist-patient relations.

The aim of this study was to compare patient satisfaction with complete dentures provided by fourth- and fifth-year dental students and prosthodontists with a minimum of 5 years' experience at the University of Jordan Hospital 8 weeks after insertion. Methods. Questionnaires were distributed to a total of 60 completely edentulous patients who received complete maxillary and mandibular dentures. Besides demographic questions, the questionnaire included questions that probed the patient's satisfaction with his maxillary and mandibular dentures, in general, using two types of scales.

The Results of the study are:

• Results indicated that dentist experience does not affect patients' satisfaction with their complete dentures.
• Results also indicated that patients who had previous dentures could adapt more easily and were generally more satisfied with their newly inserted dentures, especially with regard to their chewing ability and comfort with their mandibular dentures.
• Gender also influenced patient satisfaction with complete dentures, especially the part related to psychological and social disability.

Thus, the results of this study indicated that although adapting to new dentures is highly variable, previous patient experience and gender might remain the decisive factors with their dentures more than dentist experience. Occasionally, the high-quality complete dentures provided to a skilled prosthodontist might not lead to patient satisfaction; therefore, it is difficult to evaluate the significance of experience in the field of denture treatment.

Reference:

Factors Affecting Patient Satisfaction with Complete Dentures by Yara Owei et al. published in the International Journal Of Dentistry.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9565320