ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to determine the correlation between dental treatment need as assessed by the components of the index of orthodontic treatment need (IOTN) and a self-evaluation questionnaire in a population selected from the dental clinics of Shiraz, Iran. METHODS: The dental treatment needs of 240 participants (120 men and 120 women) were measured on the basis of the IOTN dental health component (IOTN-DHC), IOTN aesthetic component (IOTN-AC), IOTN AC determined by the examiner (IOTN-ACE), and a self-evaluation questionnaire (SEQ). The correlations between the treatment needs assessed by all the methods as well as the correlations of the treatment needs with age and gender were assessed using a Spearman's correlation coefficient (alpha = 0.01). RESULTS: All methods were significantly correlated (p 0.06). CONCLUSIONS: The correlations between the self-evaluation and the IOTN components in young adults were close to those reported in children, and IOTN-ACE was more reliable than IOTN-AC.