Evaluating shade matching ability of general dentists in Rasht in 2018

To evaluate the ability of dentists in Rasht, Iran, to determine the tooth color by sex, age, and clinical work experience.

A shade tab from the Vita 3D Master shade guide and a questionnaire were sent to each dentist. The questionnaire collected demographic information, namely age, gender, and work experience, so that the results could be examined separately for each variable. At this stage, the dentists answered the questions related to the characteristics of the color samples in terms of value, hue, and chroma, while their knowledge of color evaluation was also examined by certain items. Color evaluation was performed under standard conditions. Finally, the data were statistically analyzed by the chi-squared test at the significance level of 0.05.

The frequency of accurate determination of tooth color was 17.7 %. Generally, no significant difference was found in accurate tooth color identification in terms of sex (p = 0.912), age (p = 0.22), and clinical work experience (p = 0.236).

Dentists had a poor ability in selecting the tooth color, which is affected by a lack of knowledge of the principles of light and color. In addition, dentists should use novel methods for determining color.