Introduction:
In order to reduce costs and clinical time involved with complete denture treatment, dentists have employed simplified methods based on the reduction or preclusion of certain traditional technical procedures.
Purpose:
To survey the procedures used by dentists to fabricate complete dentures.
Material and method:
Data was obtained by an electronic form containing questions about dentists' profile and clinical procedures, in order to quantify traditional and simplified approaches at several moments and to determine them to different professional profiles. Results were evaluated by means of cluster analysis.
Result:
The majority of respondents were male dentists with clinical practice as their main income source, mainly in private service (n=119). Most participants use to take a pair of impressions from each arch, employ semiadjustable articulators with facebow transfers, shape the occlusal plane with the aid of anatomic references, determine occlusal vertical dimension by metric methods and use mandibular manipulation for centric relation. The dentists performed tooth selection in most cases. Statistical analysis identified two clusters based on demographic characteristics and clinical procedures. General practitioners adopting simplified methods formed the first cluster, whereas prosthodontists used to conventional methods formed the second.
Conclusion:
General dentists tend to adopt simplified approaches, and prosthodontists tend to work according to traditional academic methods.
Denture, complete; data collection; biomedical technology
