Comparison of pain levels on patients undergoing fixed ortodontic treatment with 2 different self-ligating bracket systems

Mustafa Dedeoğlu, Comparison of Pain Levels on Patients Undergoing Fixed Ortodontic Treatment with 2 Different Self-ligating Bracket Systems, Başkent University Institute of Health Sciences Orthodontics Doctoral Program, Doctoral Thesis, 2018 The aim of this study is comparison of pain levels of patients treated with 2 different passive self-ligating bracket systems right after initial arcwire placement at different time intervals. A total of 34 patients-17 in each group- that had Angle class I malocclusion with mild crowding were selected randomly. Brackets were placed on all erupted permanent teeth from 2nd molar to 2nd molar at the same session for all patients. 0.014 inch copper nitinol and 0.014 inch super-elastic nitinol arc-wires were selected for Damon Q and SmartClip SL3 systems respectively. 7 page questionnaires that consist of 3 visual analog scales (VAS) of 100 mm length per each page were handled to patients right after after initial arch-wire placement so that patients could mark their pain levels while chewing, biting with anterior teeth and biting with posterior teeth at 2nd hour, 6th hour, 2nd day, 3rd day and 7th day time intervals. On VAS, 0 indicated ''no pain'' while 10 indicated ''unbearable pain'' from left to right. Patients were asked to mark their pain levels with a straight line on the scales. Patients were told to bring their questionnaires back on the 8th day. Pain scores were measured manually with a ruler and noted. Data were analyzed by SPSS Statistics Version 20. Mann-Whitney U test was used for evaluating differences between groups, since the variables were not normally distributed. Friedman's Two-Way ANOVA was used for analysis of multiple dependent variables due to non-normal distribution of variables. Variables that differ from each other were determined by using Multiple Comparison Tests in case of significant differences. According to our study, SmartClip group reported less pain at the 2nd and the 6th hours while chewing. Pain levels were the highest at the 6th hour and the 2nd day for Damon Q and SmartClip SL3 groups respectively. The SmartClip group reported more pain for the first two days and after the 2nd day pain scores were very similar with the Damon group. No statistically significant differences were reported between the groups at any time interval while biting on anterior nor posterior teeth. Key Words: passive self-ligating brackets, fixed orthodontic treatment, pain, Damon System, SmartClip