The Digital Smile Design Concept and its’ Correlation to the Personality Traits – an Easier Way of the Patient Management: a Pilot Study

Abstract

Introduction Nowadays emotional dentistry with its’ subjective beauty is becoming more important than having a mouth free of biological and functional problems. Dental patients require charming smiles that are integrated with their physical characteristics but more so in harmony with their emotional aspects. The Digital Smile Design Concept let us easily achieve this excellent intercommunication and avoid aesthetic results achieved only by accident. For a deeper emotional dentistry understanding and more precise outcomes Paolucci et al. (2012) concept can be used together which combines the specific esthetic smile designs to four types of temperaments: choleric, sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic. Aim Aims of this study were: to evaluate the efficiency and influence of the simplified Digital Smile Design Concept to the communication with the patient, increasing his participation on the designing process of his own smile design, motivating and educating him about the benefits of the treatment and increasing the case acceptance (I); to establish a relation, if any, between the smile pattern and the personality traits (four mental temperaments) (II). Methods The current study was conducted for the patients who visited the Department of Dental and Maxillofacial Orthopedics (Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas) for dental check-up in January 2019. The dental patients were thoroughly informed about the study by the examiner, and all gave their written consent before commencement of the study. The personality trait of the patient was identified using a self-reporting questionnaire. The frontal view of teeth in centric occlusion and extra oral photographs (portraits) were taken while the participant was sitting upright in a comfortable position: frontal view (not smiling, smile, full smile) 45° right/ left profile (not smiling, smile, full smile), 90° right/ left profile (not smiling, smile, full smile). All photographs were captured using Nikon D700