PERCEPTION OF FEMALE DENTAL STUDENTS TO SOME GINGIVAL DEFECTS

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to assess the perception of smile attractiveness towards four periodontal defects; namely: gingival recession (GR), gingival pigmentation (GP), black triangle (BT) and gummy smile (GS) among female dental students (n=100) in five academic levels at College of Dentistry, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. Fifteen standardized altered smile images, representing the four defects at varying severities, were displayed to the students in a power point. A questionnaire with visual analog scale (VAS) was used to estimate the perception to each defect at each severity (1500 responses). The perception score was based on a scale of 0-100, where 0= the defect is strongly unattractive, and 100= the defect is relatively attractive. Results showed that PG defect was the relatively most (p ?0.05) attractive defect, whereas GR was the most unacceptable defect. Generally, perception scores decreased significantly (p ? 0.05) as the severity of each defect was increased. Education level of students had a strong effect; students at higher academic levels were more accurate and have more critical eyes than students in lower level.