Effect of Different Mobile Reminder on Bracket Failure Rates in Adolescent Orthodontic Patients: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of different types of mobile reminders in reducing bracket failure. Materials and Methods: The study included 58 patients who received treatment at the Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Afyonkarahisar Health Science University. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: the text message group (n=19), the video message group (n=19), and the control group (n=20). The age range of the participants was 13 to 17 years, with a mean age of 13.2 ± 2.0 years. The sample consisted of 30 females (51.8%) and 28 males (48.2%). Following the bonding session, patients in the study groups received text or video/photo messages twice a week via the WhatsApp application, on Mondays and Thursdays. The number of bracket failures was recorded during sessions at T0 (6th week), T1 (12th week), and T2 (18th week). The collected data were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Friedman tests for intra- and intergroup comparisons. Results: No significant differences were observed in the number of bracket failures among patients in the text message, video/photo message, and control groups at T0 (p = 0.400), T1 (p = 0.755), and T2 (p = 0.662). However, statistically significant differences were found in the intra-group comparisons between the text message group and the control group (p = 0.023 and p = 0.044, respectively), whereas no significant difference was observed in the video message group (p = 0.146). Conclusion: Mobile reminders, regardless of their type, were found to be ineffective in reducing bracket failure. © This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License