The Prosthetic Esthetic Index

Method: Participants consisted of 95 patients in need of prosthodontic replacements and a control group of 23 subjects without missing teeth. The oral esthetics was professionally evaluated on participants and controls using the PEI, which consisted of 13 different aspects of oral esthetics and an overall esthetic evaluation rated on a 5-point Likert scale. The participants were also evaluated using the Dental Esthetic Index (DEI). Twenty-five of the participants were reevaluated after 4 weeks using the PEI, and 10 dentists filled in the PEI on 26 of the participants. The content and criterion validity, the test-retest, internal consistency and inter-rater reliability and the sensitivity of the index were evaluated.

Result: The content and criterion validity were sufficient; most correlations between the aspects of the PEI was low (R>0.5, P<0.01), and the PEI was significantly correlated to the DEI (R=0.52, P<0.01). The reliability tests indicated sufficient reliability; the test-retest reliability showed an ICC of 0.80, the internal consistency reliability showed a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.78, and the inter-rater reliability was excellent with an ICC of 0.94. The difference in PEI score between participants and controls was significant (P<0.01) indicating sufficient sensitivity.

Conclusion: The PEI is considered a valid and reliable instrument to assess the professionally evaluated esthetics in prosthodontic patients.