Need of orthodontic treatment from a bibliometric profile

Abstract

Introduction: dental malocclusions are dentomaxilofacial anomalies which are found very frequently in the world population. There is registered information about the application of epidemiological indexes to identify the orthodontic treatment needs Objective: to identify the scientific production where the indexes of orthodontic treatment needs are applied. Methods: a cross-sectional and descriptive study was carried out from January to December 2013. The required information was found in Medline, PubMed and Regional Scielo databases. The data were taken in the following periods: 1975-1993, 1994-2003 and 2004-2013. The universe of study consisted of 439 abstracts and/or articles from which 334 were selected for the sample after meeting the inclusion criteria. Results: in the 1975-1993 period, 24 articles (7.2 %) were identified, 98 articles (29.3 %) in the 1994-2003 period and 212 (63.5 %) from 2004 to 2013. The papers comprising just one index amounted to 273 (81.73 %), two indexes combined in 49 (14.7 %) and 3 or more in 12 (3.6 %). Conclusions: in the first analyzed period, the most used indexes were priority orthodontic treatment index; dental esthetic index, index of orthodontic treatment need. During the second and third periods, the index of orthodontic treatment need prevailed with increased individual application of its esthetic component and the dental clinical component too. In general, this index was the most used alone or in combination, followed by the dental esthetic index.

Keywords

• necesidad de tratamiento ortodóncico
• índices
• bibliometría.