Prosthodontic decision making among general dentists in Sweden. I: The choice between crown therapy and filling

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze dentists' evaluations of factors related to the choice between crown therapy and filling and to poss ibly explain this by social and demographic attributes, job situation, and dentists' attitudes. Materials and Methods: Questionnaires were sent to a r andom sample of 2,059 Swedish dentists. The response rate was 76%. In the q uestionnaire the choice between crown therapy and filling in a clinical sit uation was presented. The dentists were asked to mark their assessments of the relative importance of the different items on 14-item visual analogue s cales (VAS). Multiple regressions were run for all 14 items. Results: Large individual variations were seen among the dentists regarding the stated im portance of the various items. The items rated as the most important were " patient's wish" and "treatment prognosis," and the items rated as least imp ortant were "treatment time required" and "number of visits required for tr eatment." The differences between groups were small, and for no item exceed ed 0.7 step on the 8-grade VAS scale. No data reduction was possible using principal components analysis. Conclusion: The study showed great variation s among individual dentists. The dentist-related factors explained little o f the variance. The results indicated that the questionnaire instrument did not fully capture the real influences on the treatment choice between a fi lling and an artificial crown.