Treatment Outcomes with Removable Partial Dentures: A Comparison Between Patient and Prosthodontist Assessments

Purpose: This article presents the results from a survey of patients' degree of satisfaction with their removable partial dentures (RPD) and the comparison between patient and prosthodontist assessments. Materials and Methods: A total of 165 experienced RPD wearers filled in a questionnaire and graded their RPDs depending on their level of satisfaction. A scale ranging from 1 to 5 was used to assess general satisfaction with RPDs and to assess their esthetics, retention, and hygiene. A specialist in prosthodontics assessed the same prostheses using the same scale, not knowing the patient's opinion. Results: The patients' assessments were high, and more than half of them graded their dentures as excellent. On average, all variables were assessed higher by the patients than by the prosthodontist ( P .001). For the patients who gave the worst grades to their dentures, the grades were lower than the prosthodontist's ( P .001), while the satisfied patients graded their dentures much better than did the prosthodontist ( P .001). Conclusion: On average, patient assessment of the treatment outcomes with RPDs was less critical than prosthodontist assessment. However, the few dissatisfied patients assessed their dentures worse than did the prosthodontist.