Normative and self-perceived orthodontic treatment need of a Peruvian university population

281 first-year students (157 male and 124 female students) with a mean age of 18.1 +/- 1.6 years were randomly selected and evaluated through the Dental Health Component (DHC) and Aesthetic Component (AC) of the IOTN. Structured interview and clinical examination were used to assess the students. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests were used for data analysis with statistical significance set at P < 0.05.An intra-examiner reliability of 0.89 was obtained (weighted Kappa). The percentage of students according to SES was 51.2%, 40.6% and 8.2% corresponding to low, medium and high SES respectively. The percentage of students with DHC grades 4–5 was 29.9% whereas the percentage of students with AC grades 8–10 was 1.8%. There were no significant differences in the distribution of normative and self-perceived orthodontic treatment need based on sex, age and SES comparisons.Normative orthodontic treatment need was not matched by a similar level of self-perceived treatment need in these young adults. Sex, age and SES were non-significant factors associated with levels of treatment need.The planning of orthodontic treatment within a public health system requires information on the orthodontic treatment needs of the population [1]. This would permit selection of cases to be treated based on financial, political or administrative purposes [2]. These indexes quantify and summarize a set of clinical and/or radiological data to obtain a final quantitative score or qualitative categorization [3-5]. In essence, the primary purpose of an orthodontic treatment need index is to identify individuals who would benefit from orthodontic treatment and would be given treatment priority [5].The assessment of orthodontic treatment need, based on the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (IOTN) [6], has gained international acceptance in recent years because it was found to be valid, reliable and easy to use [3,4,7-11].Briefly, the IOTN has two parts: the Aesthetic (AC) and the Dental He