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. 2018 Dec 22;18(1):225.
doi: 10.1186/s12903-018-0673-5.

Smile aesthetics as perceived by dental students: a cross-sectional study

Juste Armalaite  1 , Monika Jarutiene  1 , Arunas Vasiliauskas  2 , Antanas Sidlauskas  1 , Vilma Svalkauskiene  1 , Mantas Sidlauskas  1 , Grazvydas Skarbalius  1
Affiliations

Smile aesthetics as perceived by dental students: a cross-sectional study

Juste Armalaite et al. BMC Oral Health. .

Abstract

Background: An aesthetic smile has a number of components, and people generally equate a good dental appearance with success in many areas of life. The features that determine smile aesthetics could provide significant insights into post-treatment satisfaction and may predict a patient's objectives when undergoing treatment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how smile characteristics are perceived by dental students.

Methods: The study was performed in 431 local and international dental students at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. The study data were collected using a three-part questionnaire. The first part of the questionnaire included sociodemographic items, i.e., student gender, age, nationality, and years of study; the second consisted of questions about facial aesthetic features; and the third elicited responses to photographs of 17 different smiles retrieved from the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Clinic of Orthodontics database. The smile aesthetics were evaluated according to their dentolabial, dentogingival, dental, and dental arch characteristics using a 5-point numeric rating scale (1, best; 5, worst). The data were analysed using the Pearson's chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests.

Results: The study included 336 local and 95 international dental students (132 men [30.6%], 299 women [69.4%]). Significantly more women than men focused on a person's teeth when communicating (41.5% vs.32.6%, p < 0.005). Women were more critical than men when evaluating gingival smile, the 'golden proportion', occlusal cant, and dental crowding. The most unfavourable smile characteristics were identified in the dental analysis category, with hypodontia ranked as the worst smile feature (mean numeric rating scale score 4.71).

Conclusion: Among dental students, the most distracting characteristics of a smile when determining its attractiveness were hypodontia, gingival smile, a reversed curvature of the occlusal plane, and dental crowding.

Keywords: Aesthetics; Dental education; Smile.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study protocol was approved by the Kaunas Regional Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (BE-2-12). Written informed consent was obtained from all the study participants.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Example of the picture representing the feature of diastema
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Numerical rating scale used to score smiles for their aesthetic value
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The mean values of smile features. - -- line representing the cut-off value for a smile that was no longer aesthetically acceptable (≥3.5)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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