Understanding patient compliance during orthodontic treatment

Abstract

The practice of orthodontics has sometimes been described as involving two distinct but related processes, the physiological-mechanical and the psychological-educational. Proper application of appliances to the physiological-mechanical is essential to successful treatment, but no amount of attention by the orthodontist to sophisticated techniques is likely to have much effect, if those efforts are met with resistance or indifference on the part of the patient. But how does one counter that indifference or overcome that resistance? How does one even understand it? This is a most serious and baffling problem, because it is very difficult for those in the health professions to distinguish which patients will be compliant and which will not, and to know what to do about it.