Aim: The aim of the doctoral thesis was to define the connection between satisfaction with appearance and personality, interpersonal relationships, morphological characteristics of the face, and brain activity in children with cleft lip and palate.
Materials and Methods: The study included 69 children with cleft lip and palate (35 boys, 29 girls) between 12-16 years old (μ=14.400; SD=1.544). Data were collected using psychological instruments (satisfaction with appearance, personality traits, interpersonal difficulties, adaptive behavior), electroencephalography (frontal alpha asymmetry), digital study models of the oral cavity and facial photographs (sagittal step, deviation of the upper dental arch midline from the facial symmetry line, number of missing teeth in the anterior part of the upper dental arch, and the shift of dental arch midlines), and from medical records (demographic data). Three multivariate linear regression models were used to test whether lower satisfaction with appearance is associated with poorer social adaptive behaviour, interpersonal difficulties, and neuroticism (H1), greater right frontal alpha wave asymmetry (H2), and a higher number of missing teeth, smaller sagittal step, and greater upper dental arch midline and facial symmetry line deviation (H3).
Results: H1: None of the predicted variables (social adaptive behaviour, interpersonal difficulties, neuroticism) showed a statistically significant association with satisfaction with appearance (p=0.145; R^2=12.190%). H2: Frontal alpha asymmetry did not show a significant association with satisfaction with appearance (β=193.060; p=0.114). H3: The number of missing teeth in the anterior part of the upper dental arch showed a significant negative association with satisfaction with appearance (pmodel=0.023; R^2=30.095%; β=-13.846; p=0.017). Exploratory analyses revealed that conscientiousness was consistently associated with satisfaction with appearance in all models (pH1=0.009; pH2=0.013; pH3=0.007), alpha asymmetry was independently associated (p=0.00046), and the number of missing teeth was not independently associated with satisfaction with appearance (p=0.093).
Conclusions: Satisfaction with appearance in children with cleft lip and palate could only be reasonably explained by simultaneously including psychological and demographic characteristics while also considering brain activity. Simple, one-dimensional explanations of this phenomenon are therefore insufficient.
|