Quality assessment of orthodontic care for adolescents by developing individual dento-somatic profiles

Aim. To study the effectiveness of the use of individual dento-somatic profiles at the stages of orthodontic treatment to improve the quality assessment of orthodontic intervention and compliance achievement between doctor and patient/parents.

Methods. The study involved 196 adolescents with dentoalveolar anomalies needing treatment with fixed appliances. The first group (main group) consisted of 108 patients aged 12-15 years with dentoalveolar anomalies amid the pathology of the upper gastrointestinal tract. The second group (comparison group) consisted of 86 adolescents with dentoalveolar anomalies without somatic pathology. Dento-somatic profiles with determining the factors influencing the effectiveness of orthodontic treatment were developed. Modeling of individual dento-somatic profiles was performed by means of integral coefficients.

Results. In the first group, individual dento-somatic profiles were visually demonstrated to the patients, where a sharp decrease in the level of hygiene was clearly presented. A professional cleaning, the constant use of individual oral care preparations, the use of medications to improve the local immunity in the oral cavity were recommended to them. After 3, 6 and 12 months, the level of hygiene in almost all of the first group adolescents (82.6%) improved to satisfactory values, statistically significantly increased «physician-parents» and «physician-patient» compliance. Indicators of the second group patients were by 2-2.3 times worse. With irregular medical follow-up pathological symptoms fixation, lack of understanding between parents, doctor and patient were revealed. Incompleteness of orthodontic treatment was equally dependent on both the financial difficulties and a lack of understanding of the problem importance on the part of parents and adolescents.

Conclusion. Using individual dento-somatic profiles proved to be effective in improving quality assessment of orthodontic intervention and compliance achievement between physician and patient/parents; misunderstanding of features of treatment with fixed appliances by parents and patients, orthodontist inability to provide quality medical management has a negative impact on the effectiveness and significantly increases the duration of orthodontic treatment.