Shade matching quality among dental students using visual and instrumental methods

Objectives: Study aims were to compare shade matching quality between visual and machine-aided shade selection among dental students and to evaluate the effect of experience and gender. Methods: A total of 204 undergraduates and interns participated. They were briefed about colour matching using a visual method with a Vita-3D Master system and a spectrophotometer. Participants with colour vision deficiency were excluded. Six maxillary anterior teeth of a maxillary blue stone cast were replaced with six maxillary artificial teeth. Participants selected the best shade match using each method. A daylight illuminator with the GTI mini-matcher colour viewing system was used during the test. The results were statistically analysed with SPSS version 19 with 95% confidence intervals. Frequencies and Chi-square tests were used to analyse the data, at alpha = 0.05 and with P < 0.05 indicating significance. Results: Among the participants, 36.3% visually selected the correct shade, and 80.4% did so using the Easy Shade Compact machine. Experience (P = 0.177) and gender (P = 0.560) did not affect visual shade selection; in addition, with the Easy Shade Compact device, males and females equally mastered its use (P = 1.0), and experience did not influence outcomes (P = 0.552). Conclusions: The shade matching device was significantly better than the conventional visual method. With both techniques, neither experience nor gender influenced shade matching quality. Clinical significance: Visual tooth colour matching is unreliable and inconsistent because of various subjective and objective factors, and the use of a colour measuring device might improve the quality of shade matching among dental students. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.