Journal of Health & Medical Informatics

Dental appearance    is   considered  as    the

main feature to determine the attractiveness of face thus it influences the human social interactions .A patient’s smile expresses a feeling of success, affection, sensuality and courtesy that reveals self-confidence. The smile is considered as a sign of communicating that relates to the socialization and attraction. Different factors that affects the smile which includes tooth shape, position, and quality of restoration, color and general arrangement of dentition, Smile has been classified as high, average and low. High smile shows complete display of cervico-incisal length of maxillary incisors along with contiguous band of gingiva whereas low smile has less than 75% of display. In an average smile there is 75 to 100% display of maxillary incisors with the incise curvature of the maxillary anterior teeth paralleling the inner curvature of lower lip.

Certain attractive smile is the most significant social holding motion and key to your expert improvement. With the coming of new materials and procedures in the field of esthetic dentistry, individuals have changed their concept of smile and how it's structured. In the present time we have computerized smile structure as a multipurpose advanced instrument with certain clinically important favorable circumstances.

Nowadays people are concerned more about smile, it is not just a facial expression, but has a lot of benefits. Smile makes people more attractive, an attractive smile plays a major role in voting and judge decisions, job recruitment and other social interactions. Attractive people are considered to be at high social standing, more interesting and more intelligent. Studies show that we are more trustful of others when they smile. In one study done by Schliemann JPW, et al. participants were more trusted by others if they were smiling. This study found that a smile increases the people’s willingness to trust. Attractive smiles not only influence other people’s perceptions but also affect the psychosocial well-being of individual as well as their behavior.

Esthetics are characterized by the smile, however, the smile comprises of dental arch. Dental smile design likings differ from one person to other based on different factors such as: social level, economic level, education level and ethnic origin. There is a lack of similar studies in the UAE.

The purpose of this study is to determine which features of smile are attractive that are rated by the people of dental professionals of UAE. The participants were not randomly selected and were not a representative sample of the UAE population but a convenience sample. The 

participants were all adults above the age of 17 years. The questionnaire had 7 separate aesthetic features with between 3 to 6 different standardized computer generated images for each feature. The different features include the how much amount of tooth is exposed? lip line height, buckle corridor and midline position.

Results: There were total 380 participants between age of 28.6 years (SD 7.9) of which 228 (60%) were female. Significantly more females compared to males preferred a convex smile irrespective of whether the upper teeth contacted the lower lip. Females tends to prefer low lip line compared to males but this was at the borderline of significance (p=0.067).

Interestingly, more married respondents preferred the low lip line, whereas unmarried respondents were evenly distributed among an average and low lip line (p<0.05). The coincidence of dental and facial midlines would be expected as the preferred choice for both dental professionals and as well as for lay people but significantly more lay people preferred the smile that deviated towards the right. Whereas, dentists preferred midlines to be

coincident (p<0.001). Furthermore, residents of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah preferred the coincidence of midlines. Whereas, the lay people from Fujairah preferred the right deviation of the dental midline. Over all half of the unmarried respondents had a significantly greater preference for midline coincidence but married respondents were more evenly split regarding this aspect of smile design (p<0.05). There was no preference

Extended Abstract

differences for the smile design features as it is judged by dentists and lay people.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Beauty must be considered and assessed to improve the quality of treatment provided to dental patients. The opinions and perceptions on lay people and dental professionals regarding beauty and attractiveness of smile were similar, except two variables known as smile line and the relation were of inter incise line to the facial mid line.

The majority of lay people and dental professionals preferred that more than half tooth is shown at rest. An Incise curve which is convex to the lower lip, smile width with ten visible teeth, a wide labial corridor and a Colusa plane that is parallel to the commissural line. This can be considered as the preferred esthetic smile among the UAE community.

The significant differences between lay people and dental professionals in this study is line height, where the lay people preferred a low smile line and dental professionals preferred an average smile line.

Other significant differences between lay people and dental professionals in this study was regarding the inter incise slime related to the facial midline, which shows that dental professionals prefers the inter incise line to coincide with the midline while lay people prefers the inter incise line that deviated to the right of the facial midline.