[The motivation and experiences of patients in connection with orthodontic-oral surgery combined therapy. A patient survey with consideration of the clinical and psychosocial factors]

Abstract

In a retrospective study 140 patients, 97 females and 43 males who had undergone combined orthodontic surgical therapy between 1984 and 1992, were interviewed using a questionnaire. The "closed form" questions were designed to provide insight into the patients' motivations for seeking treatment and into their perceptions of its course and outcome. Nine working hypotheses taken from the literature served as the study's starting point. The evaluation of the data gathered revealed that, contrary to other studies, the motivation for patients to seek treatment was not directly related to sex, i.e., was not sex specific, although this must be qualified. The unequal distribution of the sex of the patients who had sought treatment, and who were covered in the survey, points to differences between them in their decision making processes. When the results were evaluated, the data showed 92.2% patient satisfaction and even high satisfaction with treatment outcome. 86.4% of the patients stated that they would recommend the operation to others and 82.9% said that they would undergo the operation again. This high level of patient satisfaction was to a great degree directly attributable to, above all, the positive aesthetic result, the quality of the consultation and care, and to the absence of persisting postoperative complications. When the patients were divided into subgroups by means of using single criteria, significant varying degrees of satisfaction could be distinguished among segments of the subgroups. It was not possible, however, through the use of cluster analysis to separate out with precision the small group of patients who were not satisfied with the overall results of their treatment.