The impact of development defects of enamel on young people

Background: in order to ascertain whether Developmental Defects of Enamel (DDE) constitute a public health problem it is necessary to consider whether the condition impacts on the lives of affected individuals. Aim: to describe the impact of DDE on individual young people. Objectives: 1) Describe the extent to which contemporary dental research on DDE has included the perspective of children and young people. 2) Describe the impact of DDE on the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) of young people. 3) Explore, in detail, the impact of DDE on young people. Methods: a systematic review of the literature, a cross sectional study and a qualitative interview study were conducted. Results: Little research about DDE has previously attempted to capture the subjective experience of those with the condition. The impact of DDE, as measured with a child specific OHRQoL measure, was generally of low frequency and was equivalent to that of young people with relative oral health. In qualitative interviews the impact of DDE varied markedly between young people. DDE impacted on individuals' whose sense of self was defined by appearance and who depended on perceived approval from others about their appearance. No links between gender, age, severity of DDE and impact were apparent. Discussion: The impact of DDE was generally of low frequency with marked variation in impact between individuals. This research is the first to discover that some of this variation can be accounted for by young people's sense of self. This concept has not been identified in relation to the impact of visibly different conditions before. More research is needed to further investigate the impact of DDE.