Assessment of denture satisfaction.

The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the reliability and validity of a complaints questionnaire, designed to measure different aspects of denture satisfaction. Two groups of patients with full maxillary and mandibular dentures participated in the study. The patients in Group 1 (n = 113) were on a waiting list for new dentures, patients in Group 2 (n = 102) had recently had new dentures fitted. Five denture complaint scales were constructed from the questionnaire. The internal consistency (coefficient alpha) of the scales varied from 0.65 to 0.92. Furthermore, the scales showed a discriminatory ability between the patient groups (P less than or equal to 0.001) and significant Pearson correlation coefficients with satisfaction-related questions (r = 0.25-0.79). The scores on the scales can be considered a quantitative measure of denture satisfaction.