The dental esthetic screening index: A new tool for assessment of dento-facial esthetics in restorative dentistry

Abstract

Objectives: There is a lack of comprehensive indexes, which can measure conditions or changes in dento-facial esthetics before and after treatment. Therefore, the 12-item Dental Esthetic Screening Index (DESI) was developed and validated. Materials and Methods: Reliability was tested by five dental professionals, who evaluated 30 standardized patient photographs baseline and after 14 days. Clinical validation was done on 52 patients before and after restorative treatment. For subjective assessment, patients completed a validated questionnaire before and after treatment. Statistical analysis included inter and intrarater reliability, Wilcoxon test and linear regression analysis. Results: The single item analysis identified two weak extraoral items (κ = 0.15; κ = −0.05), that were removed from the DESI. After this modification, both inter- (κ = 0.83-0.86) and intrarater reliability (ICC1-5 = 0.75-0.86) were in excellent to good agreement. In the clinical validation, the DESI was significantly lower after restorative treatment (P