Dental aesthetics and self-esteem in adolescents

objective: the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between dental aesthetics and self-esteem in adolescents. methods: the sample was 387 randomly selected high school adolescents between 13 and 16 years of age. a clinical examination to evaluate dental aesthetics was conducted using the dental aesthetic index (dai). self-esteem was assessed with the rosenberg's self-esteem scale. the statistical analysis included a descriptive analysis and means comparison, which was made through t-student and anova tests. dai was correlated to rosenberg's self-esteem scale with spearman's rank correlation coefficient. the data collected was analyzed by using the spss program version 17. results: the mean dai score was 34.2 (sd=14.2) and self-esteem was 22.6 (sd=4.6). the low socioeconomic status (ses) group had the highest levels of dai and the lowest levels of self-esteem. a weak, but statistically significant, negative correlation was found between dai scores and rosenberg's self-esteem scale (r=-0.1, p<0.05). according to age, in adolescents aged sixteen there was a slight correlation with both variables (p>0.05). regarding gender, in female individuals a negative weak correlation (r=-0.14, p<0.05) was observed. no statistically significant difference was shown among ses groups. nevertheless, there was a positive slight correlation in the middle ses group (p>0.05). conclusions: the outcomes generated by this investigation can improve our understanding of how the correlation between dental aesthetics and self-esteem may fluctuate because of the ses variability.