Patient Awareness and Attitude toward Replacing Missing Teeth with Dental Implants

INTRODUCTION

Tissue loss caused by caries, periodontally disease, endodontic failure, maxillofacial trauma, and iatrogenic factors is a prevalent condition. It can be upsetting and painful to lose a tooth, and is considered as a crucial incidence requiring significant adaptation on a social and psychological level. As result of the loss of a significant body component, the World Health Organization categorizes edentulous individuals as having physical impairments.¹

Natural tooth loss frequently causes disability because it impairs basic everyday functions like speaking and eating. It can also cause physically challenging because the embarrassment associated with tooth loss decreases social participation, for instance, by decreasing social involvement due to embarrassment associated with the presence of missing teeth.² Prosthetic dentistry has a significant impact on a patient’s life. In terms of both look and usefulness, it improves the patient’s comfort by replacing missing teeth utilizing a variety of techniques, it enhances the patient’s comfort in terms of both appearance and functionality.³

An artificial root called a prosthetic implant that is inserted through surgery into the jawbone to support a fixed partial denture, single-replacement tooth, or maxillofacial prosthesis. As more patients undergoing treatment with implant-supported prostheses indicated improvements in their assurance, standard of life, and overall well-being, it has become more and more crucial. Self-confidence, psychological advantages, and also preservation of the dental structure surrounding the teeth that need to be replaced. Because of this treatment’s high success rate and predictability, its therapeutic value is rapidly expanding.⁴

The patient’s preference and priority should be taken into consideration when choosing a course of treatment rather than relying solely on a clinical examination or a dentist’s consultation. The majority of the time, the ultimate choice is determined by the patient’s financial status, educational levels, awareness, and familiarity with the available treatment options available to them.⁵ Thus, assessing the patient’ knowledge about dental implants as a replacement for lost teeth is the purpose of this research.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

RESULTS

One hundred patients were questioned during the period of the study. Among the 100 subjects, 51% male and 49% female. All participants are varied according to different factor as sex, education level, and age.

In the current study, it was found that there is a relation between patient awareness and age; awareness of dental implant in male group is between the age 30 and 40 years; awareness of dental implant in female group is between the age 20–30. So, according to this study, awareness and knowledge increase in between 20 and 40 (Table 1). Patient attitude toward the implant increases with high educational level (graduated in both male and female) as shown in Figure 1 and Table 2. About 90% of the participants in this study did not have implant before, but 89.8% in female will agree to make implant when missing permanent teeth (Table 3). In male, 66.7 will replace the missing permanent teeth as shown in Figure 2 and Table 4.

The most negative impression about implant is its high cost about 52.9% in female and 44.9 in male. Then the second negative impression is fear from surgery (44.9% in female and 25.5% in male) as shown in Figure 3 and Table 5. Among 100 responses, 31.4% in male and 22.4% in female were very well-informed, 19.6% in male and 32.6% in female were moderately well-informed, 21.6% in male and 16.3% in female poorly informed about alternative of replacing missing teeth as illustrated in Figure 4 and Table 6.

According to this study, the primary source of information is social media in female and advisement in male. Secondary source in female is from family and friends, in male, the secondary source is social media. Dentist is considered the third option in male and female (Fig. 5, Table 7). When we asked about experiences with implants from their friends, we found that there is no scientific difference between male and female (Fig. 6 and Table 8). When we ask about how was implant successful? (Fig. 7). About 50% in female and 40% in male think that is totally successful (Table 9).

DISCUSSION

Restoring the function and esthetics of oral health is the primary concern of modern dentistry. Dental caries, gingivitis and osseous disease can cause tooth loss. In this advancing modern era, if someone loses portion of their body, they have a sense of disability and feel disabled and vulnerable due to that they lack the confidence or ability to carry out specific tasks.⁶ Individuals were impacted not only by tooth loss but also by the functional, social, psychological, and esthetic effects. They can have notable esthetic, functional, social, and psychological effects in addition to losing their teeth, which might limit their social involvement because of embarrassment.⁷

Patients reported that fixed bridges and traditional removable dentures were the most acceptable options between the different treatment techniques for restoring missing teeth.⁸ The needs and expectations of patients were evolving along with the world and the eras. It was proposed in the late 1950s to use titanium dental implants intraorally. Implants are described as the “gold standard” in substituting for the missing teeth.^6,9 The main advantages of implant treatment are preservation of adjacent tooth and psychological comfort, and other benefits include maintain bone density, enhancing masticatory efficiency, improving phonetics and esthetics, lowering the treatment rates; and it also lowered treatment morbidity.¹⁰

Due to all of these advantages, dental professionals now often approve dental implants. However, there is still a lack of knowledge and acceptability of the implant therapy option among patients worldwide. The current study gives information about patient awareness and attitude toward replacing missing teeth with implant. Majority of the samples who heard about implant were among 30–40 in male and 20–30 female. This was in agreement with the research performed by Kohli S et al.⁵

The findings of the current research showed that male awareness was better than female, which was comparable with the study of Suprakash B et al.¹¹ and Saha A et al.¹² Although, the result of the current study was not the same with the results of study performed by Polychronopoulou and Kawamura,¹³ Kawamura et al.,¹⁴ and Al-Nomay NA and Khalid A.¹⁵ Female escape from implant surgery by refusing the treatment.

According to educational level, it was found that graduated patients are more aware than others. This outcome is comparable with the results of other studies performed by Kohli S et al.,⁵ Suprakash B et al.,¹¹ Kaurani P and Kaurani M,¹⁶ and Hasnain F et al.¹⁷

In this survey, when we ask about who had implant treatment before, they found that about 87.8% in male and 86.3% in female did not receive implant before. About 89.8% in female and 66.7% in male will have an implant if they had lost the permanent tooth; this might be due to the concern of female with esthetic demand.

The most negative impression about dental implant in male (52.9%) is high cost; in female, both fear of surgery and high cost appear to show the same result (44.9%). Treatment period is the last negative impression in both male and female. Also, this result is similar to the results revealed by Mously HA et al.¹⁸ and Kohli S et al.⁵ High costs (80.2%), long period of treatment (41.2%), and surgical requirement (37.9%) were the most important problems of the treatment of implant regarding patients. Similar outcomes were obtained from additional experiments carried out in American and Japanese investigations.

As high costs were the main concern not to choose implant as treatment option, it is vital to highlight the patients about the quality of life. Because the word “surgery” is used, some patients believe that getting an implant involves a serious surgical procedure. The same results were obtained in most of the previous studies mentioned by Kaurani P and Kaurani M,¹⁶ Al-Johany S et al.,¹⁹ Tepper et al.,²⁰ Kent,²¹ and Zimmer et al.²² About 11 studies overshadow the high cost of implants.

Among 100 responses, 31.4% in male and 22.4% in female were very well-informed regarding many information source about different alternatives for replacement of missing teeth. This result is not consistent with the result conducted by Kohli S et al.,⁵ which reported that most of the responses were moderately will informed.

Several sources, including journals, dentists, the internet, friends, and family, can provide information about dental implants. In this study, Social media was the primary information source. Regarding the information source, our results matched with the study done by Zimmer et al.,²² which showed that media was found to be the main source of information about dental implants. Similarly, Berge²³ and Best²⁴ also observed media as the first source followed by dentists. This result is consistent with a research performed in the United States that showed that media was found to be the primary source.

However, Al-Johany S et al.¹⁹ stated that most of the people become aware about implants by the dental professionals, which agrees with the study of Pommer et al.,⁴ Chowdhary et al.,²⁵ Satpathy et al.²⁶ Mukatash GN et al.,²⁷ and Kumar RC et al.,²⁸ Al-Johany S et al.,¹⁹ and Arora K et al.²⁹ reported that dentists are the primary source of information.

The study conducted by Abdulrahman Alajlan et al.,³⁰ Mously HA et al.,¹⁸ and Awooda EM et al.³¹ reported that the key source of information was friends (45.5%), and this is consistent with the study done by Awooda EM et al.,³¹ Al-Johany S et al.,¹⁹ and Suwal et al.,³² and they found that friends and family provided the majority of the information concerning implants (38.2, 31.5, and 30.2%, respectively). Most of the results reveal that 50% of male and 40% of female think about implant as fully successful and also 12% in female and 21% in male think that implant is partially successful. This means that the patient had sufficient information about implant.

IMPLICATION

Efforts should be made to reduce the cost of treatment to make it affordable. More awareness about dental implants could be impaired by the implementation of public awareness programs through dental camps or various health programmers. Newspapers, television and other social media can be used to increase the awareness regarding dental implant. Awareness and acknowledge regarding implant treatment may help to reduce any unrealistic expectation about dental implant.

CONCLUSION

Lack of adequate knowledge for patient and attitude toward dental implant as substitute for lost tooth. To ensure accurate scientific data, dentists should take an active role in educating and counseling the potential implant patients. According to study limitation, one of the limitations was small sample of the design. For dentists to possess the necessary knowledge to deliver suitable and practical implant care, dental education must incorporate training in appropriate implantology. To guarantee the correct scientific information, dentists should take active role in engaging in educating and advising potential implant patients.

RECOMMENDATIONS

More studies are recommended with a large sample to assess the level of information about dental implant.

SUMMARY

In the current study, it was found that there is a relation between patient awareness and age; awareness of dental implant in male group is found in the age between 30 and 40 years; awareness of dental implant in female group is found in the age between 20 and 30. Therefore, according to this study, awareness increase in the age between 20 and 40 years. Patient attitude toward the implant is increased with high educational level (graduated in both male and female). The most negative impression about implant is high cost, and the second negative impression is fear of surgery. According to this study, the primary source of information is the social media in female and advisement in male. The secondary source in female is from family and friends; in male, it is social media. Dentist is considered the third option in male and female.

ORCID

Shaimaa N Elshaboury https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5976-0870

Yosra H Refai https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8252-1780

Ghaliah S Almutairi https://orcid.org/0009-0008-7471-5689

Eman Monier https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4310-2575

Ahmad Alsaeed https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3381-0013

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