Assessment of Nepalese prosthodontist’s attitude towards morphological completeness of dental arches in partially dentate older patients

Background: Complete dentition is not always appropriate for old aged medically compromised and financially weak individuals. It is the dentist to decide what minimum number of teeth should be restored to have the proper oral function. The aim was to find out the opinion of prosthodon­tists of Nepal regarding the suitability of shortened dental arch as treatment modality and how frequently is this treatment choice for an old aged Nepalese patient. Methods: A pretested close ended questionnaire was usedin this study.After taking ethical clear­ance from Nepal Health Research Council, online questionnaire was sent to the participants along with the consent. Analysis was done using SPSS (version 21) statistical software package. Descrip­tive statistics was used. Percentage and frequencies were calculated. Results: Among respondents, 96.2% (n=51) had heard about shortened dental arch therapy but 3.8 % (n=2) had never heard about it. Forty-two (79.2%) do support shortened dental arch. Eleven (20.8%) do not favorshortened dental arch. Their main reason for replacing molars was to improve masticatory function.Instead of shortened dental arch,n=5(45.5%) prefer cast partial denture and 6(54.5%) advice implant supported fixed prosthesis. Among Prosthodontists who recommended shortened dental arch therapy, eight (19.1%) always advised patients not to replace molars. Twen­ty-four (57.1%) prosthodontists who support shortened dental arch therapy mentioned chewing function in shortened dental arch patients as satisfactory. Conclusions: Majority of Prosthodontists agree that shortened dental arch is a suitable treatment option for older people in developing countries like Nepal. But the treatment is not employed in clinical practice as required.

An Assessment of Dentist’s Attitudes to the Shortened Dental Arch Concept

AIM: The rehabilitation of a complete dental arch is a traditional concept to maintain proper functional occlusion, but it is neither compulsory nor always attainable in many patients. Nevertheless, it is always important to provide a minimum number of teeth for efficient function. This study aimed to assess the dentist’s attitude to a shortened dental arch (SDA) concept and to assess their perception and application of it in their clinical practice in the Aseer region, Saudi Arabia. DESIGN OF STUDY: A questionnaire with 17 questions was used to reveal the views of 204 dentists from the area of study about SDA. The questionnaire set basically consists of two parts. The first part included the dentists’ demographic data, and the second one consisted of the questions regarding the SDA concept. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Descriptive analysis and associations with the factors were tested for significance using Chi-square tests, and p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Among the respondents, 43.7% were aware of the SDA concept. Thus, the expected awareness about the SDA concept among the dentists was in the range of 36.31–51.05 with 95% confidence. A highly significant difference in awareness of SDA was observed between graduates and postgraduates. Among the respondents having more than 10 years of experience, the awareness level of SDA was 66.0%. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of participants alleged that the SDA concept is useful in clinical practice and is a useful treatment modality for older adults with limitations preventing complex restorative care. However, the application of the SDA varied significantly among dentists.