Pain perception in orthodontic patients treated by fixed orthodontic appliances and it’s effect on their "quality of life"

Abstract EN

Objectives : To investigate the effect of age and gender on pain perception of orthodontic patients treated by fixed appliances and its effect on their "Quality Of Life".

Methods : The sample of this study consisted of 276 patients, who were divided according to age into two main groups Adolescents (A) under the age of 18 years and Adults (B) above or equal 18 years.

Group A was composed of 169 patients ; 117 female patients (mean age = 14.8 ± 1.7 years), and 52 males (mean age = 15.0 ± 1.5 years), while, group B was composed of 107 patients ; 72 female patients (mean age = 22.7 ± 5.6 years), and 35 males (mean age = 23.4 ± 5.3 years).

The sample for this study was chosen from the orthodontic patients of the Orthodontic clinic at Princess Haya Al Hussein Hospital from March 2010 to October 2011.

Fitting a fixed orthodontic appliance and an aligning wire was done for each patient.

On the recall visit, patients were asked to fill a questionnaire, which requires a 5-10 minutes interview between the researcher and the patient to complete.

Results : It was revealed that, 90.2 % of our orthodontic patients had pain from braces.

No significant gender differences were found in means of pain intensity scores.

Significant age differences were found from the second day of bonding extending to the recall visit, with P values ≤ .05.

For the adolescents group, the mean of the Quality Of Life scores was 3.29 ± 4.3, while in adults, the mean was 5.46±5.5.

This difference was significant between both groups.

49 adult patients (45.8 %) and 66 of adolescent patients (39.1 %) used pain killer medications.

Conclusions : From the results of this study it could be concluded that, the highest ratio of the patients reported pain was on same day of bonding, followed by gradual decrease in ratio over the successive days.

A very low ratio of patients reported pain on the recall visit compared to that of bonding day.

Pain intensity and ratio of patients experienced pain were higher in adult group than in adolescents.

While, no significant gender differences could be found in both groups.

Effects of orthodontic treatment on Quality Of Life of adult patients were higher than that observed in adolescent patients.

Analgesic consumption was higher in adult patients than in adolescent patients, as well as, higher in female patients compared to males.