Relationship between Personality Factors and Cooperation in Adult Patients Candidates for Fixed Orthodontic Treatment in Isfahan

Introduction: Cooperation is one of the most important predictors of treatment outcome in orthodontics. Lack of cooperation can cause prolonged treatment, decrease of efficiency, unpredictable outcome, and cost increase. In this study, the relationship between some personality traits of patients and their cooperation in orthodontic treatment was investigated. Materials & Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study, 90 patients who had been referred to 7 specialized orthodontic centers in Isfahan for treatment in 2018 were selected by convenience cluster sampling method. Five personality traits of patients were extracted by NEO-Five Factor Inventory personality test, and their level of cooperation between 2 months and 6 months was extracted by Orthodontic Patient Cooperation Scale questionnaire. The correlation between personality factors and the amount of cooperation in both intervals was calculated by Pearson correlation coefficient analysis. The significance level was considered at 0.05. Results: There is a significant correlation between neuroticism and patients' cooperation in 2 months and 6 months with coefficients of 0.25 and 0.24, respectively. (p value = 0.01 and p value = 0.03, respectively) There is also a correlation between conscientiousness and cooperation in 6 months with a coefficient of 0.28 (p value = 0.01). Conclusion: It seems that neurotic personality factor can be a risk factor in patients' lack of cooperation in orthodontic treatment. Conscientiousness is also a factor that can predict good cooperation in orthodontic treatment. But these correlations are not very strong.