A qualitative study of teenagers’ decisions to undergo orthodontic treatment with fixed appliance

Abstract

Objective The aim of this study was to describe thoughts and values influencing young people’s choices to undergo orthodontic treatment.

Subjects and methods Twenty-eight patients (11 boys), aged 13–19 years, at an orthodontic clinic in the western part of Sweden participated. Open, taped interviews, lasting about 1 hour, were conducted with each subject and analysed by the grounded theory method. Five descriptive categories, each related to several subcategories, were generated in the analysis and labelled: ‘being like everyone else’, ‘being diagnosed’, ‘focusing on the mouth’, ‘obeying social norms’ and ‘forced decision-making’.

Outcome Category forced decision-making was identified as a core category, describing the power in the social process, resulting in the decision to undergo orthodontic treatment.

Conclusions Motivation for the decision to undergo orthodontic treatment seemed to be social norms, and the beauty culture in their reference group and in society in general. The teenagers were not fully conscious of these external influences. Their opinion, as a group, was that they had made an independent decision to undergo orthodontic treatment.

Keywords:

• decision-making
• grounded theory
• interviews
• malocclusion
• orthodontic treatment
• teenager