Background:

the dental appearance symbolizes a basic role in the decision-making of patients in need of orthodontic treatment. At the same time, the motivation to undertake an aesthetic improvement has a deeper psychosocial background that makes it impossible to separate the two factors in the analysis. That is why; the orthodontic community must deploy actions that serve as a premise to give priority to treatment, especially in those individuals where self-image and self-esteem arouse great interest, children and adolescents.

Objective:

to analyze the relationship between the severity, aesthetics and psychosocial impact of dentomaxillofacial anomalies for orthodontic care in children and adolescents.

Methods:

a descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in children and adolescents of the dental clinic of the Tula Aguilera teaching polyclinic, in the period from September 2017 to September 2018. Epidemiological indexes were used, namely: Index of Dental Aesthetics, Index of Need for Treatment Orthodontic and the Psychosocial Impact Questionnaire of Dental Aesthetics. The importance given by adolescents to dental aesthetics was verified according to its severity.

Results:

more than a quarter of adolescents indicated that dentomaxillofacial anomalies have a significant impact on their life, from a psychosocial perspective. The moderate degree of aesthetic involvement predominated according to the perception of the patients, especially that of the females.

Conclusions:

there was a relationship between the severity of the anomalies, the aesthetic affectation and the psychosocial impact, behaving significantly in some cases.

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