The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of gender and knowledge of color in dentistry on the visual shade-matching ability of dental students with no experience in shade matching and without identification skills. Materials and Methods: A total of 32 color-normal participants, 16 female (F) and 16 male (M), completed all phases of the experiment. The control group did not listen to a 60-minute lecture (FNL = females that did not listen; MNL = males that did not listen); the other group listened to a lecture about color in dentistry (FL = females that listened; ML= males that listened). The Toothguide Training Box (TTB) (VITA Zahnfabrik) was used. The final exam consisted of a total of 15 lightness-chroma-hue tasks. The correct selection of lightness (L*), chroma (C*), and hue (h*) was observed, as was the computed shade-matching score, Σ∆E* ab , for each participant. Mann-Whitney U test was used for statistical analysis of the data (α = .05) (SPSS 22.0 for Windows [IBM]). Results: Gender was found to play an important role in shade matching. The FL group selected L* better (L* = 12.11) in comparison with the MNL group (L* = 11.00), which is not significantly different (P = .19). The FL group selected L* better in comparison with the ML group (L* = 10.57), which is not significantly different (P = .10). The FNL group selected C* statistically significantly better (C* = 9.86) than did the ML group (C* = 8.57) (P = .016). The shade-matching score, Σ∆E* ab , for group FL (Σ∆E* ab = 22.50) and group ML (Σ∆E* ab = 31.79) was marginally statistically significant (P = .06). Conclusion: A 60-minute lecture from the field of color in dentistry has a minimal impact on tooth-shade matching, whereas gender plays an important role.

Participants with color-vision deficiencies are less accurate at shade matching than the control group and the group with type 1 DM.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the influence of the extent of color-vision deficiency on visual shade-matching ability.Materials and methodsSix groups were investigated: the control group (N = 68), the protan medium deficiency (PMED) group (N = 5), the protan strong deficiency (PSTD) group (N = 5), the deutan mild deficiency (DMID) group (N = 5), the deutan medium deficiency (DMED) group (N = 5) and the deutan strong deficiency (DSTD) group (N = 8). The color vision of the participants was evaluated monocularly using the Hardy-Rand-Rittler (HRR) test and on an HMC Anomaloskop MR (Rayleigh test). The final exam on a Toothguide Training Box consisted of 15 lightness–chroma–hue tasks. The color difference (∆E*ab) and the shade-matching score (Σ∆E*ab) were computed. The means and the standard deviations for the Σ∆E*ab were calculated. An independent t-test was used for statistical analyses of the data and a comparison of means (α = .05) for protan groups and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a post-hoc Bonferroni test (α = .05) for deutan groups.ResultsThe PSTD group had a mean Σ∆E*ab of 63.38 ± 9.52, which means their selections were significantly worse in comparison to the PMED group (Σ∆E*ab = 47.62 ± 9.88, p = 0.033). The selections of the control group were significantly better in comparison to all groups with color-vision deficiency (control – PMED, p = 0.031; control – PSTD, p < 0.0001; control – DMED, p < 0.0001; control – DSTD, p < 0.0001), except in comparison with DMID group (p = 0.082). The comparisons between deutan groups were not significantly different (DMID – DMED, p = 0.352; DMID – DSTD, p = 0.323; DMED – DSTD, p = 1.000).ConclusionParticipants with strong protan color-vision deficiency are worse at shade matching than participants with medium protan color-vision deficiency.