Evaluating Tooth Color Matching Ability of Dental Students

Abstract

Visual shade matching has remained a skill acquired through clinical experience. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the shade matching ability of dental students as they progress through their education. Sixty-five students, representing four levels of experience by year enrolled in dental school, participated in this study. Students were given a preclinical shade tab matching task. They were also asked to choose the best shade match for a natural tooth in each of three patients. The natural tooth shade matching task was designed to have simple, moderate, and complex cases to match. The frequency of correct answers was compared across samples across the four levels of fundamental tab match ability and clinical experience. On average, 51 percent of the students were able to match the correct shade tab in the matching task in a bench setting. For the natural tooth color matching task, 49.2 percent of the students selected the clinically acceptable color matched shade tabs (DE*≤2.69). Although there was no statistically significant difference across the levels of fundamental ability and experience, rates of correct answers for natural tooth color matching progressively improved for the complex case from year 1 to year 4. This study reveals that, for complex cases, education and knowledge of color science combined with clinical experience improve students' ability for color matching in a clinical setting.

Influence of Gender, Anxiety and Depression Symptoms, and Use of Oral Contraceptive in Color Perception

“…Accurate shade matching has become essential to successful clinical practice, mainly in anterior teeth. Appearance influences very much the decision of patients to obtain a dental treatment . However, dentists’ visual perception is not routinely tested or systematically trained .…”

“…Appearance influences very much the decision of patients to obtain a dental treatment . However, dentists’ visual perception is not routinely tested or systematically trained . Most studies focus on the physical and physiological variables as causes that limit the proper color selection; to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the effects of an individual's emotional aspects on color discrimination.…”

“…Self‐perception of dental students with regard to their ability to discriminate colors, as well as their ability to evaluate the color of their own teeth and intrinsic factors such as physiological and emotional changes, can help to improve the training process and promote greater patient satisfaction at the end of future restorative procedures. Jaju and colleagues related that color‐matching ability of dental students is strongly dependent on individual perceptual ability.…”

“…Despite the instrumental methods of color evaluation, visual color matching is still the primary method for selecting and evaluating the color of teeth and restorations. Visual color selection is dependent upon a number of subjective aspects, and variation in any of them can lead to an altered color perception …”

Does gender influence color matching quality?

“…In addition to gender and light, several papers reported the influence (or lack of it) of experience, education, and age, on color matching results [24][25][26] . The same is true for color training programs, that can significantly improve one's color matching skills 24,27,28 .…”