A new study shows that the glow from teeth whitening often fades within a year, but if you still love your smile it may depend more on your personality on your teeth shade.
Study: Effect of personality traits on perception of the outcome of teeth whitening in young adults over the long run. Credit Picture: Peopleimages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock.com
Teeth whitening is a common practice, but its effectiveness in the long run remains unclear. Similarly, its impact on psychological and social health is poorly understood. A study published in Head and medicine He examined these aspects of teeth whitening over one year to evaluate how the specific personality characteristics influenced the results.
Import
People often feel unhappy with the color of the teeth, which prevents their willingness to smile. Such attitudes are greatly influenced by culture, demographic profile, age -related factors and even education.
Dentists often use standard shade guides to evaluate tooth color, but this may not always provide satisfactory results. Spectotomyometry is a more objective and more reproducible method based on organs of tooth perception. CIE LAB color quantitates color by applying lightness, red green and yellow-blue colors. This system has been validated and aligned with the perception of the human eye.
There is no proven direct relationship between a more cosmetically attractive smile and quality of life. However, personality factors such as neuroticism, conscience and perfectionism can be more important in determining the satisfaction of a person from one’s smile. In this context, the current study also examined how personality characteristics could change the perceived effects of bleaching, regardless of the actual degree of color change achieved.
For the study
The study included 50 participants between 19 and 28 years, randomized either in intervention or in a control group. The first received a light gel -activated gel, while the latter received an inactive gel.
Participants were evaluated for the color of the teeth, personality characteristics and the psychosocial effects of intervention at three times: basic line, one week after treatment and one year after treatment.
Study findings
Both intervention groups and control groups were similar to age distribution, gender ratio, quality of life, spectrum of personality, lightness and transparency characteristics. However, the control group had significantly lower color (color saturation) at start (p = 0.001). Specifically, the high lightness and the low color prediction of satisfaction with how the person’s smile looks.
The team exposed to the whitening gel showed an improved teeth color one week after treatment compared to witnesses. The degree of whitening was reduced over time, but even in one year, it was above the base line.
Chroma decreased in the intervention team in the first week, but increased a year after intervention. The final price Chroma remained lower than start. The translucent decreased both in the short and in the long run.
The control team showed no difference in lightness or color after a week, but decreased in one year. The translucent increased in the first week after intervention, but decreased in the first year after. Thus, the short -term color change was greater in the intervention team than the control group. However, the difference between them was in the long run.
A week after intervention, the whitening team significantly reduced psychological and social concerns, but did not statistically improve aesthetic concerns or dental confidence. This could reflect the unrealistic expectations, the initial discomfort or the need to get used to the change in the color of the teeth. The intervention team did not feel that their teeth seemed much better, nor did they feel more confident about their teeth. This may be due to the fact that the difference in the color of the teeth does not match the high expectations of the patient. Compared, the checks reported a significant psychological improvement, which continued in the long run.
In one year, the intervention group was more distressed as they perceived a recurrence of their teeth discoloration, especially in participants with detectable recurrence (DE ≥ 3). Perceived recurrence could have increased psychological stress in this group over time. On the contrary, the psychological improvement continued in the control group after this time.
“Maintaining tooth color and addressing expectations and adaptation issues are vital to optimizing the psychological results of dental aesthetic processes. ”
When they were stratified by personality characteristics, the researchers found that people who were more perfectionists and less neurotic had more benefits one week after whitening. Less neurotic individuals were more satisfied with the effects of the whitening gel, in both groups.
Extremely perfectionist people were more likely to feel more socially comfortable after teeth whitening, as they are more conscious of improving their self-reversed previous unwanted situation. On the contrary, the most conscientious people have continued to experience more improvements in the long run. These effects were equally strong in both whitening and placebo groups, indicating that personality affected psychosocial effects regardless of the actual bleaching.
Personality characteristics affect psychosocial health more than the actual amount of teeth whitening. People who show less responsible behaviors are more likely to act impulsively and may feel less aggravating than the appearance of their smiles, so improvements due to tooth whitening are less likely to benefit them psychosocial.
Conclusions
In this study, participants could not accurately evaluate the improvements in their teeth color after a teeth intervention. They often perceived a relapse in the discolored state over time. A strong placebo appeared, with the control group participants showing satisfaction with color change.
Personality characteristics have played a strong role in the impact of the process on the psychosocial effects of patients. The differences between the groups in psychosocial scores were not statistically significant overall, probably due to the high volatility of individual responses. This indicates the need to adopt a personalized approach to cosmetic dental treatments, including personalized advice, to ensure that patients’ expectations are realistic and that patients are satisfied with the treatment provided.
The authors also noted the restrictions of the study, including the small size of the sample, the focus on a single tooth, the possible effects of dehydration on enamel that leads to temporary lightness changes and technical challenges on repetitive color measurements.
