Prevalence of Malocclusion, Aesthetic Self-Perception and theirCorrelation among 18 to 24 Years Old College Students in Chennai

Background: Dental aesthetics plays a major role in determining facial appearance of a person. Facial appearance of a person contributes to his self-confidence and thereby provides social recognition to a person. The present study was conducted with the aim to assess the prevalence of malocclusion using Dental Aesthetic Index (DAI), aesthetic self – perception using Oral Aesthetic Subjective Impact Scale (OASIS) and to evaluate the correlation between these two scores among 18 to 24 years old college students in Chennai. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study employing cluster random sampling was conducted among the college students in Chennai. Students aged between 18 to 24 years were clinically examined for assessing prevalence of malocclusion using (DAI) followed by assessment of self-perception of aesthetics using (OASIS) with a self-administered questionnaire. Correlation between the scores was assessed using Pearson’s correlation. Results: 573 study subjects participated in the present study, 73.8% study subjects had normal occlusion or slight malocclusion 18.2% study subjects had definitive malocclusion 6.3%) study subjects had severe malocclusion and 1.7% study subjects had very severe malocclusion. N=173 (30.2%) of the study subjects were very concerned about the appearance of their teeth. A significant positive correlation (r=0.287), (p<0.05) was observed between the DAI score and OASIS score among the study subjects. Conclusion: 8.2% of the study subjects had severe malocclusion, there is no significant difference in the prevalence of malocclusion across gender, mean OASIS score was high among female compared to males and a significant positive correlation observed between DAI and OASIS, and hence OASIS measure can be used to assess the self-perception of malocclusion.