Outcome assessment of implant-supported prostheses.
BACKGROUND
From the dental professional's standpoint, implant rehabilitation offers dramatically improved treatment alternatives to orally disabled patients. However, what a patient perceives as important to their function and satisfaction with their prostheses may be quite different from what the dentist believes are significant health-related improvements.


OBJECTIVE
To resolve this problem, a series of investigations were designed to measure satisfaction and performance in groups of patients who wore various types of prostheses supported by endosseous titanium implants.


METHODS
Methods are described for assessing treatment efficacy and population needs, including measures of perceived levels of disability, health-related quality of life, and functional capacity.


RESULTS
The findings highlight patient factors that have not been considered before and appear to contribute to the success of prosthetic rehabilitation for the edentulous patient.


CONCLUSIONS
Patient-centered approaches to the assessment of treatment efficacy are highly relevant to today's prosthodontists, whose goals are the improvement of function and quality of life for their patients.
Feine
J S
JS
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Dufresne
E
E
Boudrias
P
P
Lund
J P
JP
D002755:Choice Behavior; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003758:Dental Implantation, Endosseous; D019094:Dental Prosthesis, Implant-Supported / Q000523:psychology*; D003779:Denture Design / Q000523:psychology*; D003826:Denture, Complete, Lower / Q000523:psychology; D003828:Denture, Overlay; D006801:Humans; D008334:Mandible; D008409:Mastication; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011788:Quality of Life; D013060:Speech; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric