Parents' Attitude toward their Children's Appearance in the Case of Esthetic Defects of the Anterior Primary Teeth

PURPOSE: To evaluate parents' attitude toward esthetic defects of maxillary primary incisors and the association between various demographic parameters and the treatment parents chose for their children. METHODS: The study consisted of two parts: 1) a clinical examination of the child's primary incisors, and 2) a questionnaire for the accompanying parent. 362 parents who accompanied 294 children aged 1-6 years, participated in the study. They were divided in 2 groups: parents' accompanying children with esthetic defects (study group) and parents' of children without esthetic defects (control group). RESULTS: Significantly more parents in the study group (73%) recognized an esthetic problem in their child's incisors, compared to (17%) in the control group. Eighty seven percent (219 in the Study Group [85.20%] and 97 in the Control Group [92.4%]) advocated dental treatment to save a primary tooth even if the chances for success were only 50%. 35.9% rejected the idea of a prosthetic replacement for a lost primary incisor. The same percentage of parents (35.9%) answered that they "want it 'very much'" while the rest (28.2%) chose intermediate scores '2-3' on a scale of '0' (= not at all) to '5' (= yes! very much). CONCLUSION: Parents are interested in a conservative treatment for preserving esthetically damaged incisors, but will be less enthusiastic to replace extracted or missing teeth with an esthetic device.