A dental-facial attractiveness scale. Part I. Reliability and validity.

Since the decision to seek orthodontic treatment is frequently the result of concerns about appearance, assessment of need for treatment should include an impartial evaluation of dental-facial appearance. While some of the standardized techniques for assessing malocclusion have included a consideration of esthetic impairment, they tend to confound this with functional impairment. The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable index that provides relatively objective judgments of dental-facial attractiveness. The subjects in this study were eighth- and ninth-grade children seeking orthodontic treatment and their siblings, and eighth- and ninth-grade children not seeking treatment and their siblings. Photographs of the children were rated for dental-facial attractiveness by lay and dental judges. Children were also assessed for severity of malocclusion by means of the Treatment Priority index. Children seeking treatment were perceived as significantly less attractive than children not seeking treatment. Dental judges rated children seeking treatment as more attractive than did nondental judges. Intraclass reliability coefficients were moderate to high.