Pain and orthodontic treatment.

OBJECTIVE

To explore whether patients' pain experiences and orthodontists' assessments of their patients' pain levels are consistent and whether orthodontists are aware of their patients' use of pain medication.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Survey data were collected from 116 adolescent patients (44 male, 72 female; aged 10 to 19 years; mean age, 14.27 years) and from their orthodontic care providers.

RESULTS

While only 18.0% of these patients agreed that they had pain during their last orthodontic appointment, 58.5% indicated that they experienced pain for a few days after their appointment. On average, dentists underestimated the patients' pain during the last appointment (rated on a 5-point scale, with 1 indicating no pain: providers = 2.01 vs patients = 2.28; P = .042), immediately after the last appointment (1.93 vs 2.34; P = .005), and 1 day (1.77 vs 2.53; P < .001) and 2 days (1.57 vs 2.19; P < .001) after the previous appointment. Only 26.5% of the patients used pain medication immediately following and 1 day after the last appointment. Providers underestimated the amount of medication used.

CONCLUSION

Orthodontists underestimated the degree to which orthodontic treatment caused pain for their patients and their patients' use of pain medication.