Investigation And Analysis Of The Psychological Impact Of Malocclusion On College Undergraduates

Objective:To investigate the impact of the incisor position on the self-perceived psychosocial impacts of malocclusion on college undergraduates, to provide a basis for clinical treatment and to reduce the impact of malocclusion on college undergraduates. Methods:Three hundred and eighteen newly-enrolling college undergraduates were randomly sampled from the Xinjiang Medcal University using cluster sampling. And they were assigned to the five groups through clinical assessment according to the British Standards Institute Incisor Classification. The five groups represented were normal occlusion as well as incisor Class I, Class Ⅱ/1, Class Ⅱ/2, and Class Ⅲ malocclusion. And then, the self-perception of dental esthetics was assessed using the Psychosocial Impact of Dental Aesthetics Questionnaire (PIDAQ) among all the subjects. Statistical analysis involved the analysis of variance and Tukey multiple-comparison post hoc tests. Results: Psychosocial impacts were different among the five groups for the three PIDAQ domains (P<0.001for all three domains). Statistically significant differences were found between the four malocclusion groups and the normal occlusion group in all three domains (P<0.001for all three domains). Furthermore, statistically significant differences were found between four malocclusion groups. Conclusions:All four malocclusion groups had more severe psychosocial impacts than the normal occlusion group in the three PIDAQ domains. Statistically significant differences were also found between the four malocclusion groups; these malocclusion groups ranked by score, highest to lowest, were Class Ⅲ, Class Ⅱ/1, Class Ⅱ/2, and ClassI.