Treatment difficulty assessment of postgraduate orthodontic cases at a university clinic

Abstract

Background: Judgement of the degree of treatment complexity and difficulty posed by an orthodontic case may be assessed using proposed, validated and objective indices. Objectives: To assess the treatment complexity and difficulty of cases treated at a South African University by orthodontic registrars. Materials and Methods: A retrospective, descriptive, cross-sectional study of 49 pre-treatment patient records were electronically assessed using the ABO Discrepancy Index (DI). The DI scores were categorized into four degrees of DI complexity. The data were statistically analysed and all tests were at 5% level of significance.Results: No significant associations were found of DI with race, gender and malocclusion, nor between the cases allocated to registrars. Anterior openbite, ANB, SN-MP and IMPA were found to primarily influence the DI score. Conclusion: All the registrars had most of their cases in the very difficult category. ANB, SN-MP, IMPA and anterior openbite had the most influence on DI.