Influence of gender and age on pretreatment expectations of prosthodontic patients requiring removable dentures

ABSTRACT

The objective was to assess the pretreatment level of expectations of prosthodontic patients from removable prostheses and to establish any relationship of these expectations with their gender and age. For this, a cross-sectional survey was carried out on 108 patients by using a self-designed close-ended questionnaire including five main questions that were to be answered as yes [2 points] or no [1 point]. Final score, derived through numeric calculation, was used to categorize the expectations as either low [score of 5-6], moderate [score of 7-8] or high [score of 9-10]. Expectations were low [realistic] for only 15 [13.9%] patients and remained very high [unrealistic] for 51 [47.2%] patients, including 30 females and 27 middle aged patients. Chi-square test revealed significance for gender [P=0.001] and the age groups devised [P=0.035]. It was concluded that both gender and age of the patients may have strong correlation with their pretreatment expectations, which were unrealistically very high among the females and middle aged patients